News Archives - Page 12 of 27 - Postcards from The Pug Bus

Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

News

Trump Win Puts Neo-Nazi German Villages on Tourism Map

Biff Scuzzy 10 years

As though to acknowledge that fashion is indeed the universal language, Globus® and other purveyors of European package tours have added Wibbese, Jamal, and half… Read More

News Politics

#blacklivesmatter Campaign Launched at Dunkin’ Donuts

Biff Scuzzy 11 years

Dunkin’ Donuts’ new #blacklivesmatter campaign hit a speed bump after it had been rolled out in Providence, Rhode Island, last Friday. Matter of fact, the… Read More

News

You Are All Charlie Hebdo, Warns the Grammar Grump

philmaggitti news 11 years

That was some strange business that went down in Paris yesterday, wasn’t it, boys and girls? Couple of Muslim thugs and their fan boy killing… Read More

News

Pennsylvania Governor Torches Interview With Bizarre Marriage Metaphors

philmaggitti 13 years

HARRISBURG, Pa.—During a local TV interview yesterday, a well-known Pennsylvania politician attempted to explain his views on marriage policy and immediately demonstrated why his communications… Read More

News

Guido Barilla Announces New Regina Brand Pasta

Biff Scuzzy 13 years

PARMA, Italy–Guido Barilla, chairman of the Barilla Group, the world’s leading pasta manufacturer, announced yesterday that his company plans to introduce a “boutique” pasta line… Read More

News

Obama Orders Name Change for Tomahawk Missiles

philmaggitti news 13 years

WASHINGTON–Although he has not been able to persuade Congress to give him permission to bomb Syria, President Obama demonstrated yesterday that a president, no matter… Read More

News

Study Links Obesity to Increase in Cyber Crimes

Biff Scuzzy 13 years

FOSTER CITY, Ca.–A study conducted by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) reveals that obesity is no longer an impediment to committing crimes… Read More

News

Obama Allows Gas Stations and Bars to Begin Offering Flu Shots

philmaggitti 13 years

In a move that critics say is calculated to detract from the cluster bomb that passes for his Syria policy, President Obama signed an executive… Read More

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.