Holiday – The Eye of Zatara

[SATIRE] The “Eye of Zatara” Investigates –
THE CUBE EARTH THEORY

[Original Article: Sunday, October 31, 2021]

There are some things about the world around us that we tend not to question, things we believe in and cling to so whole-heartedly, we cannot even imagine them being any different– the color of the sky, for instance, or the taste of fresh apple pie. But what if one of these fundamental truths about our world could be challenged, or even proven wrong? What would we say to these facts? Would we even accept them at all?

The earth is a marvelous place, a sphere with a circumference of over 40,000 kilometers. But what if the earth isn’t a sphere at all? What if the earth, that we all know and love, is actually a cube, a wayward dice cast into our humble little solar system by some great celestial being that got caught in the gravity of our friendly yellow Sun and began a small orbit around it millennia ago? What if everything that our government have ever told us about the nature of the earth was propaganda meant to keep us from finding out we are living on borrowed time, travelers on the side of a cube in a massive galactic game of craps? A game that someday soon will continue… rolling our earth and everything on it into some unknown part of the galaxy again as our macrocosmic benefactor struggles in vain to win their celestial equivalent of casino chips using us. Would you accept that?

Those who gamble often, may acknowledge a fickle mistress known as “Lady Luck” when hoping cards or dice to turn in their favor. Similarly, the spirit of wilderness on our own beloved “planet” is often referred by the maternal monicker, “Mother Nature”. What if these two feminine figures of nature and chance are one and the same, the essence of the unique cube-shaped “world” we call our own? Pablo Picasso, when developing as an artist, started with the style of “realism”, but grew to surpass it, turning to a new style that he himself would pioneer, a style known as “cubism” – as “cubism” is apparently the next step beyond our current concept of “realism”.

We see proof of this in more recent events, as well. Why would NASA have to fake the moon landing, when the moon is so very close to our own dear sweet little planet, and should be easy for us to send a ship up, even with 1960’s technology, and land on? Because NASA did not realize that the moon, like our Earth, is also a six-sided cube, and missed the moon with their Apollo 11 rocket, landing instead on the planet of Mars, and forcing them to send faked footage of Neil Armstrong’s landing to television viewers back home while overlaying this footage with the real audio of Apollo 11’s crew landing on what they thought was the moon… but was actually Mars.

Even in fictional media, we see dice at the center of some of our most prominent thoughts about space and time, with a golden dice hanging from the top of the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit in Star Wars, drawing added attention in more recent entries in the franchise, a dice that… unbeknownst to all but the most hardcore of Star Wars fans… says ‘This Is Earth’ in ancient Corellian across it. How could this completely true and completely unfabricated fact be real if we do not, in fact, live on a planet that is known by some to be a cube?

Here is an experiment that you can try at home that clearly proves that the Earth is not round or flat, but is actually a cube. Find a long, flat table in your house that is capable of supporting your weight and carefully climb on top of it after cleaning off everything else on the table that could otherwise invalidate your experiment. Stand on the very center of the table and begin walking slowly to the table’s edge one step at a time, and then continue walking after you reach the end of the table. You fall down and hurt yourself, right? Well, have you ever fallen down and hurt yourself while walking in a straight line on a mostly flat part of the Earth? No, you haven’t, right? Then, the Earth can’t be flat. Next, find something round like a bean bag chair laying around your house and set it down in the center of the table from before, repeating the experiment while starting, this time, on top of the bean bag chair and walking forward until you fall off the end of the table again. OUCH! The earth can’t be round then! Finally, take a small step ladder and set it down in front of the end of the table to simulate the edge of a cubed planet’s surface and repeat the experiment one more time, but when you get to the edge of the table, walk down the step ladder instead of continuing forward off the edge of the now perpendicular corner of your experimental model of Earth. See? You didn’t get hurt this time, just like in real life! The earth MUST, in fact, be a cube!

Now that you have this knowledge, the question for you then is what to do with it. Many corrupt forces in our world such as the United States government, China, Bigfoot, Facebook, the international “Big Five” companies, Blockbuster Video, and my Great Aunt Gertrude will belittle, insult, or even threaten you if they hear you speaking the truth about our six-sided planet Earth. They may even block you from Facebook or, worse, coerce all your friends into un-Friending you like they did all of mine! (I know it was YOU behind that, Aunt Gertrude, and don’t expect me not to bring it up this Thanksgiving!!!) Knowing that our world is not round (or even flat) like many around you will constantly assert may lead to nothing but trouble for you, maybe even causing you to second guess (or even abandon) your new beliefs so the hatred and mockery you experience will end.

However, I believe there is value in knowing the truth, value that goes beyond “popular” and “unpopular”, beyond “likes” and “dislikes”, beyond even “friends” and “enemies”. The truth is the truth no matter how Facebook, Bigfoot, Blockbuster Video, and your extended family respond to it. And, the truth is, the Earth IS a cube, believe it or not. They may say there are two sides to every story, but there is only one side to truth… and that side says there are six sides… to the truth about Earth. What will you choose to believe?

~The Historian

***

A wonderful article by The Historian! Way better than that stupid one you wrote about wolves a few years back that was so unpopular it forced us to fire you for a while. You might actually last on the payroll a whole year this time! Here’s hoping, old friend!

~The Gatekeeper

***

You talk as if any of us actually get paid for this…

~The Watchman

***

😛

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] The “Eye of Zatara” Investigates… ZOM-BEES

[Original Article: Saturday, October 23, 2021]

When I was a kid, I used to be deathly afraid of bees. I wasn’t allergic to them or anything, but the threat of something so small, so unintrusive that could slip its way into my world and fill me with what seemed at the time to be unimaginable pain for simply happening upon it at an unfortunate moment… I think that’s what really frightened me as a kid.

Now, I respect bees for what they are – an essential part of our ecosystem that pollinates the plants that make our human habitats beautiful and healthy, something which is now disappearing from our world at an increasing rate. I’m sure you’ve heard about the decreases in the honeybee population, but I’ve come to find out a little more about it than you’ll ever hear in your local media news hour. CNN, Fox News… they don’t want to talk about it, either. It’s true that bees are dying at an almost alarming rate in some parts of the country. What you’re not being told is what killed them, and, even more terrifying, what happens to them after they die. They don’t simply rot on the ground like they were squashed under a human shoe. No, they come back with a vengeance against the cold mechanical world that so cruelly extinguished them… they come back as zom-bees.

The year is 2017. Unsold DVD copies of the 2016 movie “Ghostbusters: Answer the Call” were just beginning to pile up in city garbage dumps after retail outlets gave up on trying to hawk them in their discount movie sections and finally let them be hauled away as refuse. Workers at a dump in Seattle, Washington, noticed a peculiar phenomenon that occurred after Seattle’s constant rain poured down long enough on a 1 mile square radius section of unsold Ghostbusters DVD’s in a corner of the refuse yard. All the insects in that part of the dump were laying dead around the DVD’s, apparently killed by some sort of toxic, unfunny chemicals that seeped from the unwanted movies after being eroded away long enough by Seattle’s acidic rain. In that moment, a new pesticide was born.

Known to exterminators testing the chemical in the area as “The Just Won’t Be Silent Killer”, the chemical seemed to stimulate deep-seated mental and emotional pain receptors in any living being that came into contact with it, overwhelming them in a way that many insects, having never built up any immunity from previous exposures to Melissa McCarthy, had no tolerance for, causing them a rapid, horrifying death. The chemical was a godsend, able to kill tough pests like bedbugs without fail, and was set to begin a much larger, countrywide test run before being officially approved for international use when the first bees began to come into contact with the substance… and it changed them.

At first, the bees simply died like all other insects (and some humans) when exposed to concentrated, liquified Melissa McCarthy humor. But, then, everything turned quickly for the worst. Perhaps something deeply naïve and innocent in the gentle, flower-loving little creatures fought back against the sudden influx of darkness into their tiny insect souls, clinging desperately to life out of sheer rage of how their existence was being extinguished. Perhaps other factors were involved. All we know is from that moment on, the DVD-laced chemical was never used again, and all the bees that accidentally came into contact with it during its test run came back from their initial bout of death… as creatures that could no longer experience death. Furious, comedy-loathing, human-hating, swords of inconsolable, unkillable, unstoppable stinging that attacked in swarms anything that moved… and then ate the brains of whatever they killed, apparently seeking fresh brain tissue to regenerate the parts of their minds forever scarred from their contact with liquid Ghostbusters 2016.

Roaming through the Pacific Northwest, these swarms of zom-bees now sting and infect their own kind, killing off the normal honeybee population and turning their sacrificed former kindred into more of their own stinging zombie legions. A quick excuse about “murder hornets” from Asia helped to distract the population from the true threat for a time, but, now, many in our country are beginning to again awaken to the truth that swarms of stinging, slaughtering, human-hating, brain-eating zombie honeybees are wreaking havoc all along America’s west coast. As they spread into California, wildfires were started to try to exterminate the bees and keep them from infiltrating the state, but to no avail. Zom-bees are real, and they are winning the fight with humanity. One painful sting at a time.

So, if you find yourself on the western side of our beautiful US of A, and you see a swarm of oddly grey-colored bees moving about from an oversized hive of pinkish, grayish goo that looks like human brain tissue… don’t worry! You have nothing to fear. Because it will all be over for you shortly. The only thing you have to worry about now is what you will do to keep your mind off the pain in the 60 seconds of being stung all over at once you will experience when the zom-bees see you… and come for you in vengeance for being exposed to Ghostbusters 2016.

You have been warned!

***

Throughout the month of October, the “Eye of Zatara” is continuing to investigate the strange and paranormal in our community, bringing to light mysteries that could question and unravel everything we know about the world around us. Keep in mind that this story is REAL, according to everything we were told about it by this one guy we met at Starbucks the other day who seemed really credible, although he wouldn’t give me his name. Or maybe he did, and I just forgot it. Was it… Frank, maybe? He ordered a mocha white hot chocolate. I do remember that. How can you possibly question anything being told to you by a man with such a fine taste in drinks? Well? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

If you have any reports of zom-bees sightings in your area to pass along, or other paranormal encounters you’d like us to investigate, please reach out to the “Eye of Zatara” today through our Comments section or through my P.O. box, and by P.O. box, I mean unfinished bird house sitting on a bench in my backyard waiting for me to do something with it. That I’ve taped a sticky note to that says “P.O. Box”. Trust me, it’s very secure. So, reach out to the “Eye of Zatara” today!

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] The “Eye of Zatara” Investigates – PUMPKINFOOT

[Original Article: Monday, October 18, 2021]

As I came to the edge of the mostly unheard-of little town of Lyre, Louisiana, I looked for the signs I had been given by locals to find a creature that was said to reside there. A curious soul by nature, I have spent many a weekend traveling throughout central Louisiana – investigating haunted houses, searching for cryptozoological creatures, and taking guided tours at the very site of the most infamous crimes of the century. But now I was on the trail of something more elusive, a local legend of a creature said by many to resemble the stories of “Bigfoot” found throughout North America, but a creature that can only be found in the cool months of autumn when orange and brown are everywhere, and when Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving celebrations spread like a plague of strange contentment throughout the families of the land. I was searching for the strange and oddly scented creature known only to a few local fishermen as… “Pumpkinfoot”.

As I approached Ficton Pond, a mossy little fishing hole that served as one of the few “landmarks” of note in the mostly swamp and wilderness of Lyre, I saw unusual footprints in the mud along the pond’s north-facing edge – large footprints, resembling those of a man, but much bigger, and with a strange scent clinging to them that I recognized immediately as a steady purveyor of Starbucks lattes in the fall – it was the scent of pumpkin spice. Suddenly, I heard a sound. An inhuman growling like that of a wounded beast which shook me to my very core, for I could hear in that bestial roar, an almost human undertone to the screaming that told me I was on the verge of meeting something terrifying. Running from the pond out of instinct, I tripped over a limb from a fallen log in the underbrush, only to look behind and see the silhouette of the very creature I had foolishly come to this little town to uncover. It seems that instead of me finding and investigating it, Pumpkinfoot had, instead, come to see and investigate ME.

Tall and imposing, with a large ragged red beard like that of a man, the creature towered over me in the waning afternoon light, his visible teeth gnarled and yellow, his fingernails long and dirty, and a faded Metallic shirt and torn up old blue jeans, obviously “borrowed” from humans he had killed, covering up his otherwise mostly hair-laden body. He walked barefoot through the brush towards me, his cold amber eyes staring down imposingly into my own baby blues, as he opened his mouth to speak or consume me, I wasn’t sure which, but I feared the worst, and searching inside myself for any hint of ingenuity and courage with which to get out of this terrible situation, and finding none, I turned to prayer to find comfort in my final moments.

“This is private property, Man. You can’t just be coming in here on my land and poking about. It’s not a public fishing spot.”

I opened my closed eyes in shock. The creature speaks! And not just in a vague, incomprehensible mix of human and beast, but clear, concise, albeit a little informal, human English! I was too startled, at first, to even respond.

“Look, you got $20? You give me $20, and I’ll let you fish here all you want today. Just come to the front door of my house next time, and ask. I was trying to carry my team in another lousy match of Overwatch when I saw you poking about from my window.” the beast pointed to a rudimentary, almost abandoned looking, dwelling on the other side of the pond, a clouded window facing exactly in my direction. “I REALLY don’t have the patience for trespassers today.”

I reached for my wallet. I couldn’t remember… had I brought any cash with me today? Would this strange creature let me live even if I did? Does he possibly have CashApp?

“You don’t have any money, huh?” the man-creature roared, taking a sip of something, most likely fresh human blood, kept warm in an old cracked tumbler in his hand. “Hmmm… well, those are some pretty nice shoes you got there.” The creature smiled a hearty, gnarl-toothed smile, the scent of pumpkin spice and coffee wafting out from his otherwise foul breath as his mighty lungs exhaled.

“S…Sure.” I said, taking off my tennis shoes without realizing what I was doing and handing them to the creature, who immediately grabbed them and put them in place on his large, mud-stained old feet.

“How nice. A perfect fit.” The man-creature smiled again, an oddly satisfied look in its cold amber eyes. He took another drink from his chalice of warm human blood. “Alright, you’re free to fish. Just don’t try to connect to my Wifi…”

“W…Wifi?” I asked sheepishly, crawling slowly through the mud away from the creature in the general direction of my silver Ford pick-up truck just outside the small woodland clearing.

“Yes, my Wifi. It’s not secured. And I need it to play Overwatch.” the creature smiled sweetly, a bestial glint flashing briefly in his eyes as he tracked my cowardly movements in the opposite direction of him. “The last guy who connected to my Wifi while fishing here and made me lose a game because of lag… well… HE’S what I’ve been mixing in with my pumpkin spice coffee each morning the last couple of weeks. SEE FOR YOURSELF!”

The creature laughed, throwing coffee from his old tumbler in my face which was, indeed, mixed with some kind of thick reddish liquid and also what appeared to be small bits of human flesh and bones! Screaming, I ran off with my hands over my face, despite the coffee being lukewarm at best, frantically racing to my nearby truck and driving hastily away from the area as quickly as I could. The man-creature just stood there, watching me without breaking his gaze, not even seeming to move a muscle throughout the entire length of time that I fled from his vicinity.

“You can come out now, Ma. The intruder’s gone.” the man-creature whispered, drinking down what remained of his mostly lost cup of coffee before spitting out a finger bone that got caught in his mouth. In response to these words, a nine foot tall naked bestial creature whose features were concealed entirely in several layers of a very thick coating of dark black fur like a bear’s stepped out of the shadows behind a nearby cluster of trees near the man-creature’s house, walking barefoot over to her smiling son and hugging him sheepishly in thanks for warding me off. The hairy thing growled contentedly before letting off a strange aroma of pumpkin-like musk from somewhere in a gland along its back that quickly filled the whole clearing around old Ficton Pond with the scent of autumn spice. “I know, I know. You get scared when humans come around here looking for you. I understand. Don’t worry, the old Koolaid and fake skin and bones trick worked like a charm again this time.”

The man-creature smiled.

“And, not only that, I even got some nice new shoes out of it.”

Upon seeing the second creature out of the corner of my eye while flooring it out of the little town containing Ficton Pond, I never again resumed my hunt for the legendary creature known to its locals as “Pumpkinfoot”, or even returned again within 50 miles of the frightful little bump on the road remembered forever in my nightmares as Lyre, Louisiana.

***

While difficult to believe, the “Eye of Zatara” stands behind this story, following countless long hours of not investigating it and interviewing unrelated passersby. All throughout the month of October, we will continue to investigate the strange and paranormal. Stay tuned here for the latest supernatural news, fact-checked by honest, reliable writers and journalists who always, for your benefit, take every possible step to watch YouTube instead of investigating anything. Have you, too, seen a creature resembling “Pumpkinfoot” in the wilds of Louisiana? If so, contact the “Eye of Zatara” today, and you just might be the subject of our next 100% true, completely unexaggerated, right as rain, Snopes-verified (for whatever that’s worth) news story in… “The Eye of Zatara Investigates”!

~The Gatekeeper

This story is ridiculous. I’m going to get a latte.

~The Watchman

😛

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] The “Eye of Zatara” Investigates – MEN IN GREEN

[Original Article: Monday, October 4th, 2021]

“You may have heard the rumors about the men in nice suits that show up whenever you see something that… shouldn’t quite exist in our world. The hushed whispers of secret government cover-ups, inhuman infiltrators of our society, and magic-like occurrences that defy modern civilization and its technology. Heck, you may have even seen a movie about these, so-called, “Men in Green”. Well, I am here to tell you that they are very real.

It was a rainy St. Patrick’s Day in the town of Meadup, Louisiana. The precipitation had finally let up, and a rainbow could be seen leading just over a nearby hill to something I could not quite make out. I had taken the week off work to celebrate my wife’s birthday with a cruise we were leaving for tomorrow, so I had the leisure to walk a few minutes forward until I could try to see what was at the end of the little rainbow by my house. That’s when I saw it.

They call them “UPGO”, or “Unidentified Pot of Gold Objects”, small black kettles of otherworldly locomotion that float impossibly above the ground while surrounded in an array of otherworldly lights, all centered around the end of a rainbow, as if the bridge of many colors led, at its far point, to another world beyond imagining, one which I was not supposed to be aware of. A shadowy figure emerged from within the golden metallic coins that littered the top of the floating kettle, a small green-clothed humanoid with a ragged hairy red beard and a hat with a four leaf clover on it. I had seen an honest-to-goodness “little green man”. The minute it saw me, it disappeared. Down into the end of the rainbow in a flash of light with the rainbow disappearing a few short seconds behind it, and I thought that would be the end of my story. Until the next day, when the men in nice suits showed up.

I was almost finished packing for the cruise when I heard a knock at the front door a few rooms away. Tossing another polo shirt into my suitcase, I then hurried over to my home’s threshold and opened the door to be greeted by a suspiciously serious looking middle-aged man in a green suit and tie, along with another man that looked a lot like Will Smith. They flashed some kind of ID in my face, something strange that looked like they had gotten it from the bottom of a cereal box, and started asking me about hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons. I told them I knew nothing of these things, but had seen a strange pot of gold at the end of a rainbow in my front yard yesterday. They frowned.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.” the more serious-looking man said in a somber tone, taking… something… out of his jacket. The strange cylindrical device looked like one of those pens from grade school that could write in any color depending on which button on the top of the pen you pushed first. But on the top of the thick, pen-like machine was what was clearly some kind of plain brown potato. I was more than a little confused.

“Look into the potato please, Sir.” the man said very seriously, while his assistant mumbled something under his breath about making pancakes for Shrek. I refused. Why would I stare at a stupid potato, and what did this have to do with the UPGO I saw the day before?

“We’re from the government, and I need you to look into this potato.” the man said more seriously, reaching for something else inside his emerald suit coat… possibly a weapon? His partner reached for a weapon as well, while whispering to me something about finally being able to make up for “After Earth”. At this point, I’d had enough. I slammed my front door in the face of these strange “Men in Green” and looked for my cell phone to contact the police when, suddenly, some kind of talking dog, a pug, was in my house in front of me, holding the same “potato pen” device as the others. I saw the strange sight for only a moment before a bright emerald light filled my eyes and I woke in my bedroom, laying on the bed beside my still only half-packed suitcase, having apparently fallen asleep while preparing for my cruise.

I sighed with relief, happy the strange series of events had turned out to merely be the musings of my resting mind. Then, I heard it. The sound of… something… perched on the open sill of my nearby bedroom window.

“If you thought that was bad,” a multi-colored toucan carrying a box of “Froot Loops” under one arm mused in perfect English. “Just wait ’till you see what agents they send now that you’ve seen me.”

My startled scream could be heard all the way to the other side of another fleeting rainbow in the little town of Meadup, Louisiana.”

***
As per our usual standards, “The Eye of Zatara” confirmed the above account with its usual rigorous filtering process before posting it to this website (AKA we asked our ‘Magic 8 Ball’ if it was true and it said ‘Probably’.) Stay tuned for more in-depth investigations into the strange and paranormal as “Halloween Month” continues on “The Eye of Zatara”!

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] “The Eye of Zatara” Investigates –
ALLEN ABDUCTIONS

[Original Post: Sunday, September 26, 2021]

“The first thing I remember was the lights. I woke up, and there they were… shining through my window bright as the sun. I tried to shield my eyes, but it wasn’t enough. I could still see them even with my eyes closed. Bluish white, piercing impossibly through my body and my mind. I should have been scared, but something compelled me instead to follow them. To seek out that unfathomable glow. To see what was creating such otherworldly brightness. To see what wonder of heaven or of earth had invaded the dark little shroud tucked around my early morning bedroom. Curiosity had gotten the better of me. Inexplicably, I watched myself as, a moth drawn to a flame, I quickly threw on a jacket over my T-Shirt and stepped outside, expecting… something.

Metallic. The lights were coming from something metallic. I strained to see more through the brightness as a loud sound like the foghorns I remember from the lighthouses that dotted the little beach east of my childhood home startled me out of my own head. Then, I saw the shadows. The little shadows of what appeared to be humanoid figures stepping out of tall rectangular hatches on either side of the glowing metallic silver mass. They were wearing strange clothing, old rustic American jumpsuits like those worn by mechanics of several generations gone by. And, there, over the breast of their uniforms I saw a patch that was identical across each of the barely visible figures now standing darkly in the glow of a halo of bluish white radiance behind them – a name patch that on each and every one of them that said, in faded red cursive lettering, simply… “Allen”.

They grabbed me and tied me to a platform on the back of their silver metallic mass. I saw a strange symbol engraved upon the front of their giant machinework out of the corner of my eye as I screamed in objection. The face of a horned ram staring back at me. And near it, in almost human looking writing, what appeared to be the English word for… “Dodge”? The Allens took out some fishing line and tied me to cold metal, a kind of flat rectangular storage bay on the back of their oversized silver conveyence, a trail of smoke leading up from the end of a long, loud exhaust tube sticking out from the back of their machine. Laughing, they opened small cylindrical containers of some kind of foamy beverage and took sips from their unusual refreshment before climbing into the control chamber at the front of their otherworldly vehicle and driving me down the road away from my home… away from everything and everyone that I ever loved… and into a cornfield from which I feared I might never return. A cornfield known for having strange animal mutilations and aluminum can litterings occurring overnight.

Once they got me to the field, I tried to scream but they simply laughed, and continued to drink out of those strange cylindrical vessels whatever it was they relied on for sustenance. They took out a rusted, red metal box filled with all kinds of cruel, otherworldly torture devices and began hitting me over the head with what I can only describe as some kind of tiny bent metal rod. The humanoids responsible for my abduction called it an “Allen Wrench”. Soon the hitting me over the head with a wrench was joined with what appeared to be human screwdrivers, pliers, claw hammers, and whatever else my sadistic benefactors could find and retrieve from within the horrible depths of their cold metal box. A receipt from a human “Human Depot” store spilled out puzzlingly from the accursed red container as they reached for a especially vicious looking “Hex Key” (their language, not mine – I have no human word equivalent to offer for it) and begin poking metal parts of it up my nose while drinking more of their frothy chilled space juice and laughing.

Eventually, I must have passed out from terror, because the next thing I knew, I woke up alone in the middle of the cornfield with circles of tire-track-like impressions forming a geometric design in a pattern all around me, several dozen unlucky possums found mutilated (squashed) on the small country road leading away from the field back to town forming a red trail of truth – a small lingering evidence that my humiliation at the hands of the Allens was real. It was a long time before I felt safe enough to reach into my pocket for my smartphone and call for an Uber to get home. Longer still before I told my family back home what had happened that night after returning to my humble abode and forcing myself back to bed even knowing I wouldn’t fall sleep while recounting in my head all the horrible, otherworldly things I had heard and seen.

Many of my friends think the entire incident was simply a dream. Something I made up in my mind, to make myself feel special in some way, as I live out my otherwise boring and uneventful life. But I and my Uber driver, Diego, know the truth. I didn’t drive myself out to that cornfield. And I certainly didn’t tattoo ‘Get ‘Er Done’ and ‘Here’s Your Sign’ on my own back that night. I encountered something otherworldly and supernatural that will stay with me my whole life… until my very last day on this humble little planet that we call Earth. And I say humble planet very earnestly, because if that strange night of torture with the Allens taught me anything… it’s that we are not alone in this world. Allens, in whatever backwoods you find them and in whatever giant pick-up truck they are riding in, are not a trick of the light or an experimental weather balloon to be dismissed. They are not some new governmental aircraft, or angels, or time travelers, or swamp gas, or wolves.

They are very, VERY real. And, maybe… just maybe… without you even knowing it right now, there is a slightly sober Allen waiting and watching over you right now, too. Waiting to shine his lights into your bedroom. Waiting to take you out into that cornfield. Waiting to stick a Hex Key up your nose and laugh.

Waiting to shakily tattoo ‘Get ‘Er Done’… forever… in broken, illegible letters on your back.”

~The above account was submitted to the management of “The Eye of Zatara” by a reluctant and trustworthy witness, a man who may or may not have been the ACTUAL cover-up artist who removed the “Get ‘Er Done” and “Here’s Your Sign” tattoos from the back of the anonymous, tortured victim of our story. As Halloween season approaches, the “Eye of Zatara” will continue to investigate paranormal phenomenon reported to us by various bored employees at businesses we frequent, spending at least thirty minutes verifying the details of these stories before posting them forever on the internet as indisputable fact.

We at “The Eye of Zatara” have an ironclad commitment to finding out the truth about our reality, and sharing that truth with you, our readers, so you can better understand the horrors that could face you in the otherwise innocent world all around you.

Watch the skies, dear Reader. Or, um… the roads. Or something. (Your driveway, maybe?)

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] A St. Patrick’s Day Miracle! – Man Wakes Up After Night of Drinking in a Field of Lucky Zero Leaf Clover!

(Original Post: March 18, 2017)

New Orleans, LA – In what has been described by some as a “St. Patrick’s Day miracle”, 21-year-old New Orleans resident Ricky Lansing has awoken after a long holiday night of drinking, partying, and general revelry to find himself, to his surprise, in a wide field of “zero leaf clover” somewhere in St. Tammany Parish, an approximately one hour drive from the last place Ricky remembers being the night before, leading him to post a social media thank you to “the st patrks day elves or whtevr the hek tgis holladay’s about. wait, not elbes, lepercons mayB? thnk u, st patrks day lepercons!!@! u rok!! holy crp, man, sun is so brite out rite nw. wht the hck?”.

“It was incredible.” one of Ricky’s close friends and drinking partners, 26-year-old unemployed “college student”, Thomas Frederick “Freddie” Mustang, explained to recently reinstated intern news reporter, Michael Hamden Jr. from CBC News, a few hours later. “One minute, Ricky was right next to me puking on this cute girl’s shoes in this bar on Bourbon Street called ‘Memoriez’, the next he’s texting me from this like… massive field of clover, saying he needs a ride back to his apartment. It was like… crazy! Normally, I wouldn’t go and get him as much as I’d had to drink myself, but, hey, I figured… if the magic of St. Patrick’s Day is on his side, what can possibly go wrong for me, you know? I was half-right, anyway. Sorry, random guy and his neighbor’s mailbox. And pet terrier.”

“What exactly is a zero leaf clover, anyway?” Michael Hamden Jr. asked, as Freddie sniffed his shirt to see if it was ok for him to wear it another day to avoid doing laundry.

“You know, it’s like a regular or four leaf clover, but without the clovery parts. I’ve like… never seen so much of it in one place before!” Freddie explained, deciding the borderline stench of his three day old shirt could be concealed if he took it off and put it back on inside out while in the middle of his interview with Michael Hamden Jr.

“You mean like grass?” the intern reporter asked, making a sudden realization about the two drinking buddies’ story while looking through his notes on a small pad of paper.

“No! Wait, what? Grass? Well, maybe.” Freddie answered, somewhat surprised, completing the flipping over of his shirt and now pulling a random sandwich out of his cargo pants’ pocket and eating it right in front of the CBC News intern reporter. “Wait, you think we’re so stupid we can’t tell the difference between grass and clover? To heck with you, Man. We’re not stupid! This was clover, clover! C-L-O-V-E-R. It was a St. Patrick’s Day miracle! A miracle, Man! How else would I have made it to Ricky in one piece crossing the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway when I was seeing quadruple? I like go to church, you know, like once… in a while… maybe. And I have a Bible… somewhere. Or maybe that’s just a phone book. Either way, that’s why it happened, Man, I promise you! Wait… is St. Patrick’s Day actually a Christian thing, or is that the one with the Pilgrims and stuff, I can never remember? No, that’s Easter, right? And why does this sandwich smell like beer and throw up?”

“…what am I even doing here?” Michael Hamden Jr. sighed, throwing his notepad into a trash bin before quickly leaving Freddie’s messy apartment in disgust. “And your sandwich doesn’t smell like beer and throw up, you do. Maybe next time take a shower within 24 hours or so of having an interview with a television reporter, just an FYI there, Buddy.”

“Ouch. Harsh, Man.” Freddie replied kind of tiredly before taking a bite out of his day old pocket sandwich. “Hey, where you going? I got this other great story I was going to tell you about how I found five bucks in a public restroom on Valentine’s Day last year!”

On the insistance of his father, senior CBC News reporter Michael Hamden Sr., Michael Hamden Jr. attempted to follow-up on this story with “miracle boy” Ricky Lansing himself, but was repeatedly met with unanswered phone calls followed by texts hours later saying “i got a hedache cal u later, bruh.” At that point, 22 year old Michael Hamden Jr. gave up on further investigating this story, and went himself to ‘Memoriez’ to drink away the stress of dealing with Ricky and Freddie.

In a related story, New England Patriots Quarterback, Tom Brady was also recently found in a field of “zero leaf clover” in the St. Tammany Parish area after disappearing from Houston, Texas following Super Bowl LI in a swarm of angry peregrine falcons. When asked by reporters if he also credits his safe return to solid ground to the “elves of St. Patrick’s Day”, Tom Brady explained further.

“No, after carrying me around in the sky for over a month,” Mr. Brady began, “the birds were getting pretty hungry, and that washed up actor, Nicolas Cage, was out throwing stale bread in the park, trying to convince some seagulls of the genius behind his self-written script, ‘National Treasure III: Is There Like a Ghost in the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis or Something? No, Probably Not.’ The falcons were so hungry, they dropped me to steal Cage’s bread from the seagulls. I only wish the birds had just eaten me alive and gotten it over with so I wouldn’t have had to listen to Cage read me the script of yet another one of those stupid movies.”

“It was better than the first two, though.” Tom Brady then added, a look of thoughtful disgust on his starved and heavily bird-scratched face. “Heaven help me that I know that, but I do.”

As of the posting of this article, Ricky Lansing has not returned Michael Hamden, Jr.’s calls, and no confirmation of the existence of “zero leaf clover” has been made by New Orleans area botanists. Due to the publicity generated by this story, however, “National Treasure III: Is There Like a Ghost in the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis or Something? No, Probably Not.” has been picked up by Walt Disney Pictures and is tentatively set to debut in theaters in summer of 2018 alongside other long-anticipated thrillers like “Twilight: Moon Something Something Solstice Eclipse Horizon The Teenagers Who Will Watch This Are Too Stupid to Know What These Things Are Anyway” and “Marvel’s ‘Captain, Uh, Somewhere’: The Lost Avenger”. Inquires about whether or not Nicolas Cage will himself star in the new National Treasure movie he wrote as in the previous installments of the movie trilogy have been answered by executives at Walt Disney Pictures with a loud fit of laughter followed by several hours of wild, hysterical crying according to reliable sources contacted by the “Eye of Zatara”.

EDIT: After the posting of this article, the author (the Gatekeeper) also broke down into wild, hysterical crying while watching a self-made trailer for National Treasure III posted to Nicolas Cage’s YouTube account this morning. His grief was so great even a hot, delicious Chunky’s Pizza ordered by co-editor, The Watchman, was not enough to console him, and he ran screaming off into a field of “shiny three leaf clover” that turned out to be poison ivy.

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] Mardi Gras Signs Up for Jenny Craig Program, Tired of Being Called “Fat Tuesday”

(Original Post: February 27, 2017)

New Orleans, LA- As the people of New Orleans revel in the excitement and tradition of their favorite late February celebration, the southeastern Louisiana area holiday known as “Mardi Gras”, tired of being referred to year after year by the insulting monicker of “Fat Tuesday”, has reportedly signed up with the popular Jenny Craig weight loss program in an attempt to slim down before next year’s festivities, even going so far as to release a “soy-and-tofu-based King Cake substitute” that supposedly has most of the taste of the popular Mardi Gras dessert, but without “all those fattening carbs and sugar”.

“Everyone seems to have just gotten used to me as ‘Fat Tuesday’. Everywhere I go, people smile and wave, calling out my name like it doesn’t kill me a little inside every time they do,” Mardi Gras explained to veteran CBC News reporter, Michael Hamden, during a short interview at New Orleans’ world famous Cafe du Monde yesterday. “But, a hundred years ago, they called me ‘Skinny Tuesday’, or ‘Mardi Maigre’, until a few decades of drinking and eating King Cake made me less of a parade personality and more of a parade float. Yet, as a holiday, I’m expected to just keep smiling, and act like everything’s alright 24/7, even though my identity is shattered and I’m dying inside. Can you imagine what it’s like to live forever like that?”

“Mardi Gras beads barely fit around my neck anymore.” the overweight holiday added, rather sadly, while also trying not to drool over the delicious beignets being eaten by Michael Hamden right in front of him. “I used to be a smiling Jester bringing happiness to everyone around me once a year. Now I’m just a sad clown faking my joy decade after decade while holding in the tears. The drinking helps, but there’s not enough alcohol in Louisiana to really water down what I’m feeling inside. It took me almost a century to admit it, but I need help…”

While many have come out in support of Mardi Gras’ decision to begin a weight loss program in order to return to a healthy lifestyle, other notable celebrities have surprisingly denounced Mardi Gras’ comments for various reasons, one of the most vocal of which is on-again, off-again spokeswoman for Jenny Craig, Kirstie Alley, who is rumored to have been dropped by Jenny Craig at the end of last year after gaining one hundred pounds while on their program, and whose role as the program’s spokeswoman may, according to some reports, pass in a few months to a hopefully slimmer Mardi Gras, assuming he has success with their plan.

“Mardi Gras doesn’t really want a healthy lifestyle. He just wants people to stop calling him fat.” Kirstie Alley announced to Timothy Gibbings from SLNC News in an early interview this morning in SLNC News’ New York studio. “That’s not going to be enough to really make a permanent change in his life. Trust me, I know. If Jenny had any sense in that tiny, anorexic head of hers, she’d wait for me to slim down again, and let me make more commercials for them myself, instead of trusting her future to a freaking green and gold court jester. A freaking green and gold court jester! I mean, things have worked well enough for me and Jenny for years. Why change it now? Just because some immortal personification of a celebration has got some self-esteem problems, she’s going to throw me to the curb like yesterday’s garbage?”

Surprisingly, TV talk show host, major media personality, and founder of the OWN television channel, Oprah Winfrey, has also come out in criticism of Mardi Gras, but for very different reasons.

“It’s like my good friend, Dr. Phil, always says, ‘You gotta love yourself before you can change yourself.’ I’ve been fat, skinny, and everything in-between, sometimes fluctuating hundreds of pounds in a single week, but do you see me getting down on myself? No, I’m always me, and Mardi Gras has got to learn to love himself for who he is, too, if he ever wants to live a productive endless existence as an existential conglomeration of Louisiana festival traditions. Love yourself before you can change yourself… wait, maybe that was actually from a fortune cookie.” Oprah Winfrey trailed off, mumbling to herself a few seconds while trying to determine the actual origin of her poignant quote. “Boy, I sure could go for a fortune cookie right now. ALRIGHT, WHO’S GOT A CHINESE TAKEOUT MENU? MAMA OPRAH IS HUNGRY!”

Unfazed by the negative feedback he’s received from modern celebrities, Mardi Gras has assured the public that he is dedicated to his goal of losing weight, and hopes to return to his previous skinny self no later than the year 2027.

“It’s going to be hard to cut down on the drinking, binge eating, and riotous revelry that have come to define me as a holiday,” Mardi Gras said in a public statement released on his personal website a few hours before this article’s posting on the ‘Eye of Zatara’. “But if a tangible manifestation of beads, booze, and laughter from the heart of Fleur-de-Lis country can’t lose this kind of weight with all the many resources at my disposal as an immortal holiday, what choice do normal people have at shedding a few pounds themselves with the timelines of their short human life spans? I want to give people hope that no matter how many states require them to weigh in at Truck Stops when traveling cross country… no matter how many buffets turn off the lights and pretend to be closed when they pull into the parking lot… no matter how many donut shops and pizzerias send refrigerated trucks on scheduled deliveries to their house every morning just to serve them breakfast… they can lose weight just like I can, if they really put their mind to it, and refuse, no matter what, to give up hope that they can change.”

“Unless they’re film maker Michael Moore.” Mardi Gras later added, with a shrug, in a live video post to his website. “Hey, I want to inspire people, not make them believe the impossible.”

In a related story, Terry Bradshaw has apparently signed up with Weight Watchers in a similar attempt to slim down, after the same swarm of falcons that previously carried off New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady at the end of last month’s Super Bowl attempted to abduct him the following week, but were unable to move him more than an inch or two off the ground before giving up and flying in mass to the nearest veterinary clinic for suspected hernia treatment.

[SATIRE] New Jersey Gamer Couple Enters “Open Beta Relationship”

(Original Post: February 24, 2017)

Westbury, New Jersey – Following their successful interaction on the recently launched “Technical Test” for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, nineteen year old gamers Michael Markenson and Lila Peachtree, who each live on different sides of the small town of Westbury, New Jersey, have announced via social media today their transition into a new type of tactical co-operative endeavor, a real life dating sim they call an “Open Beta relationship”.

“I really didn’t expect this when I invited Lila, AKA GamerGirlBetterThanYou7, to party up with me, Mike, and my college buddy, Ramos, to take on the Santa Blanca Cartel in the Open Beta for Ghost Recon.” fellow Westbury, New Jersey gaming enthusiast John Blackwell, AKA xHedshotz4Daysx, announced via a comment on Instagram about the shocking local development this morning. “I mean, I know they both live in Westbury, but I never really thought they’d hit it off like that. I really just wanted to play Ghost Recon, but the two of them wouldn’t stop blabbing about saving the environment and wanting to open a pet shelter someday or something. It was kind of distracting, honestly. I got taken down by Unidad like five times because the two of them were too busy talking about how they both wanna see Paris some day to cover me when I went in with my MP5. Honestly, I’m probably not going to invite them to my party tonight when I boot up the game again.”

When asked by friends and followers on Twitter about the details of their new relationship, Michael initially declined to further comment, but Lila stepped up fearlessly to offer just enough information to silence the gaggle of gossipers’ endless queries.

“Frankly, I just started talking with Michael, AKA 4c3Gunner111597, yesterday, and we aren’t even meeting in real life for the first time until tomorrow.” Lila explained, while customizing her character’s appearance on the Ghost Recon loadout menu. “So, we’re going to keep our relationship in the Open Beta stage for now. We’ll spend a week or two trying out some romantic features, and, if it looks like the Game of Love is something that’s going to be worth paying full price for, we’ll pre-order a full relationship right then and there. Otherwise, we’ll just move on. Things are looking good so far, though. I’m not sure if I should be sharing this, but, last night after playing Ghost Recon, Michael called me and we spent several hours in Team Chat together on the phone, discussing strategies for the Game of Love, as well as other things. Frankly, I’ve never had this kind of connection with someone before, so it feels like a real Achievement for me personally.”

“Being with Lila makes me feel like a new console.” Michael then added, spurred on by the boldness of his new girlfriend in talking about their new romance, and now ready to publicly throw in his two cents worth. “I know our Open Beta relationship is going to need a lot of patches and updates to keep it running smoothly, and I’m going to need a lot of Free Space in my life to make room for all these changes. We might get mad at each other, and have to shut down online functionality for an hour or two until we cool off. And even once we’re in a full version relationship, we’ll probably have to sit down every three months and shell out a little more emotional capital to download something new into our game to keep things fresh and interesting. Frankly, I think the Game of Love is worth it, however, and I’m willing to go so far as delete whatever other games and apps in my life try get in the way of our romantic simulation to ensure I have enough space in my heart for GamerGirlBetterThanYou7.”

After Lila responded to this comment with a winky face emoticon, Michael added a little more, before booting up his console to play Ghost Recon again until Lila gets off work at HighCostCo later this evening.

“Maybe it’s too early to say this, but I’ve always been a one console man.” Michael explained, as family and friends followed along nosily on his various social media feeds on the subject. “And like an X-Box, I think Lila may just be the One for me. As many other games and apps I used to fill my time before I met her, my hard drive just didn’t feel complete until the night I downloaded our relationship into my life. No matter how other parties like Nintendo may try to seduce me to their side in the future, I just don’t think I’ll ever Switch. I may have a lot of other Followers in my real life, but there will forever be only one girl in the Friends List of my heart.”

Michael and Lila’s mutual friend, John Blackwell, reportedly vomited a little in his mouth after reading Michael’s above posts in his Facebook Newsfeed, before unfriending him on all social avenues possible, and inviting two other high school friends to party up on Ghost Recon with him and his college buddy, Ramos, for the duration of the game’s Open Beta. Michael and Lila, however, were too busy fawning over one another on social media to even notice.

[SATIRE] Man Forgets Old Acquaintances, Childhood Friends, Co-Workers – Cannot Bring Them to Mind

(Original Post: January 1, 2017)

A man in New York City has filed suit against a small circle of friends at a New Year’s Eve party he attended last night claiming that after a rousing rendition of the classic New Year’s Eve carol, “Auld Lang Syne”, by their host, the highly suggestible 38 year resident of the Bronx took the song to heart and “let old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind,” and now cannot remember the names or faces of multiple childhood friends, high school classmates, church acquaintances, and co-workers, causing considerable damage to both his social identity and reputation as a result.

“I work at a furniture store on 2017th Street,” the now acquaintance-less Bernie Roberts of New York explained to Michael Hamden of CBC News earlier this afternoon, “Unlike many other businesses in the area, we were open on New Year’s Day promoting a special sale of up to 50% off select furniture, but when I arrived for my shift, I suddenly realized I didn’t recognize more than one or two of my co-workers, and everyone else was just a blank. I tried my best to pretend that nothing was wrong, but the jig was up pretty quick when I made a crack about how ridiculous it was we were open on New Year’s Day, completely unaware that I was speaking to our boss who had made that very decision. I was nearly fired on the spot. Only by explaining my condition was I able to get out of termination, and only after promising to work extra shifts on my days off for the next couple of months. It’s awful, and it’s all that darned New Year’s song’s fault!”

His career was not the only part of his life affected by the sudden short and long-term memory loss, however, if Mr. Roberts is to be believed.

“Our in-laws are in town for the holidays. You should have seen the look on my wife’s face when I could not remember her mother’s name.” Mr. Roberts admitted with a growing looking of desperation in his eyes. “I thought she was a door-to-door salesman. I told her to ‘Go bother someone else.’ before my wife came out, right on time to hear what I said. I, uh… well, Margerie… my, um, wife hasn’t exactly come home since that…”

Trying to determine the extent of his memory loss, Mr. Roberts opened up his Farcebook account to see how many of his friends on the popular social media site he could still remember. The results were not encouraging.

“Of 207 friends, I can clearly remember about 13.” Mr. Roberts admitted sadly, beginning to grow uncomfortable the more he talked about his unbelievable condition. “Most of them were close family members, a a few of my better friends, and my pastor. Thank goodness I can still remember him. He’s the one I called after Margerie… left with her parents. It’s probably only because we really connected at this big church barbeque in November. Apparently, he’s a big Steelers fan like me, which is pretty rare here in New York.”

When asked how his plan to sue his few remaining friends would help to alleviate his potentially permanent personal damage, Mr. Roberts paused for a moment before giving his answer.

“It won’t. But, perhaps…” Mr. Roberts said with a heavy sigh. “It will give me the resources to get the help I need, or, at the very least, the resources I need to move on…”

At this point in the interview, an unnamed “Eye of Zatara” source allowed to tag along on the CBC News interview due to a personal connection with Mr. Hamden interjected, much to the chagrin of the intrepid CBC News reporter.

“You realize the lyrics about forgetting acquaintances in ‘Auld Lang Syne’ are rhetorical, right?”

“Wha… what?” Bernie Roberts answered shakily, horrified at what he was hearing.

“It’s a rheotorical question. It’s not actually telling you to forget all your old acquaintances. It’s asking whether it’s a good thing to let good friendships be lost in the passage of time. It’s really more of a call to remember your old friends, not forget them.”

“I… I see…” Mr. Roberts answered, his voice cracking with raw emotion. “I didn’t… I really didn’t… know that.”

At this point, the CBC News interview had to be terminated as the interviewee, Mr. Bernie Roberts of New York, had an emotional breakdown in the middle of Michael Hamden’s office, and had to be forcibly removed from the building by security. There are currently no scheduled plans to continue the interview any time soon.

[SATIRE] “Blixo the Red State Reindeer” and the Evil Grummold Grump!

(Original Post: December 23, 2016)
*Read to the bottom for a special holiday message from the “Eye of Zatara”.

From the makers of “Wendy’s Frosty the Tasty Snowman” and the writers of “It’s the Offensive St. Patrick’s Day Irish Stereotype, Charlie Brown!”, this Christmas Day, experience a new holiday classic unlike any you’ve ever seen before. Gather your politically-informed children around the tree and roast chestnuts on a burning collection of your multiple “I Voted” stickers while witnessing the untold story of Santa’s favorite back-up reindeer, “Blixo”, as he sets out on his own magical holiday adventure of social enlightenment in “Blixo, the Red State Reindeer,” premiering Christmas Day on your local CBC affiliate station!

Join Blixo, an otherwise happy and friendly little reindeer from the heavily Republican-controlled state of Texas, as under the influence of conservative talk radio and the Fox News Channel, he fails to identify newly-elected King of the North Pole, the sinister Grummold Grump, as the racist, con artist, and hatemonger that he is, spouting patent absurdities like “Why not at least give him a chance?” or “Maybe you shouldn’t call him a fascist just because you disagree with him politically?”

Everything changes for Blixo, however, after his more tolerant and compassionate friends block him one by one on Facebook until, at last, the lonely little reindeer (and hopefully your more independent-thinking children, as well!) realizes through social shaming and absolute conformity of idea the error of having his own opinion without being looked down on or insulted. Unable to bear the election of Grummold Grump any longer, Blixo joins Rudolph and the gang in a riotous romp of rage and vandalism through the streets of Santa’s Christmas Town, coming upon Mr. Grump’s wife just as she prepares to board a commercial sleigh flight, and shouting her down with entitlement-driven insults and anger.

In the end, Blixo learns that the greatest Christmas present of all is to use the power of social media to paint everyone he disagrees with personally and politically as a World-War-starting dictator, and to never accept or respect the results of any election unless it conforms exactly with his own opinion. The song at the end of the tale summarizes the entire wondrous holiday story, and will keep your children singing happily throughout the remainder of our country’s brief existence before the “End of Days” (the coming inauguration of President-Elect Donald J. Trump). As a thank you for all your support of the CBC Network this year, we’ve gone ahead and included the lyrics for this new musical classic at the end of this article below. Teach your children the words ahead of time for extra social justice bonus points – it’s like saving a tree, but without any of that exhausting cost and sacrifice that saving a tree normally requires!

Happy all-inclusive, not-necessarily-religious, government-sanctioned Work Holidays, Everyone!

***

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen
They all voted rightly, even that rogue Blitzen
But where you aware?
Of the Red State Reindeer who just didn’t care?

Popular leftist opinion,
Says that Grummold Grump is mean,
And if you dare a challenge,
You’ll verbally have your clock cleaned.
All of the other reindeer are tolerant as they can be,
Clearly, if you voted for Grump, you must be a racist, see?

Blixo is a reindeer from a Red State – yes, those old hicks,
Who aren’t educated enough to vote right, probably because they’re from the sticks.

So, if you aren’t a hater,
Compare Grump to Hitler on Facebook,
Otherwise, next time I see you,
I’ll give you that judgmental look.

You know the one I reference,
That liberal-guilt-filled, judgmental look!

***
EDIT: Seriously, people, all the Gatekeeper’s ridiculousness and cleverish satire aside, I know those of you on the left don’t like Donald Trump, and can’t stand the fact that he won the election. I didn’t vote for him, either. (I actually voted Independent for the first and hopefully last time ever.) But, can we all tone down the rhetoric a little? Donald Trump is no Mother Teresa, but he’s not Hitler, he’s not Stalin, he’s just a very egotistical man who got elected because people are so tired of being lied to by the political establishment that they were willing to vote for anyone that promised them something different who actually looked like he had a shot of winning and doing a decent job of leading the country. As we approach Christmas Day, the time many of us celebrate our Lord and Savior’s miraculous birth, and a commonly-recognized time of peace and joy for even those without strong religious belief, can we not come together for a few days as a country and agree to some boundary lines beyond which we won’t go in insulting people we disagree with politically? Just something to think about…

Merry Christmas, Everyone.

~The Watchman