presents the
Outlandia Gazette
T.G. Buckley-Dockter – Founder; Publisher; Editor-in-Chief; Distribution Manager; Intrepid Reporter; IT Guy; Coffee Girl
MOTTO: Presenting our Truth with a capital 'T.'
Vero Nihil Verius. Nothing is truer than truth.
All editorial All social commentary All for the common good
Issue Number 21
March 28, 2019
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With no gas for cooking (thanks alot, Avista CEO Scott L. Morris, former Ashlander) we were forced to eat out for several days last week. We figured we may as well get a story out of the effort (and expense!), so the Outlandia Gazette dispatched our esteemed food critic, Pierre I. Gourmand, to check out the chow scene and bring back plenty of left-overs. Here is his report.
Zut! Qu’est-ce que c’est? (English, please.)
What are these things? According to various restaurants in Ashland, these are supposed to be carrots. Mais non! On restaurant menus they may be called shredded carrots, shaved carrots, or grated carrots. Ce n’est pas vrai.
In truth these are industrially-manufactured orange products. Or little orange sticks if you will. They’re everywhere! Quelle horreur!
Here are real carrots.
Real carrots are not equally-sized, rectangular-shaped objects. Real carrots don’t look like matchsticks. Real carrots are food.
To ascertain a biological relationship to a vegetable, our staff had the orange sticks tested at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensic Laboratory here in town. Their conclusion:
“Undetermined carbon-based substance. Possibly from the Pleistocene era.”
Not appétissante.
Plunging further into this odd orange phenomena, we conducted a taste-test survey with 100 brave Ashlanders. Each volunteer was blindfolded and given a tablespoon of orange sticks. They were instructed to eat them; then write down what they thought they were eating.
Results:
After gagging, 90% wrote: “Whatever it was, it wasn’t food.”
The other 10% wrote it tasted like:
– moldy hay
– a plastic straw
– cat litter
– a Ticonderoga pencil, number 2 lead
– shoe leather
– a shoelace
– a shoe horn
– a Brillo pad
– toenails
– hamster breath
As a reward each participant was given a five pound box of assorted chocolates from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Shop. They demanded ten pound boxes–as more were needed to erase the bad taste left in their mouths.
In a wise executive decision, we decided not to ask the volunteers to also sample the equally-ubiquitous, industrial-manufactured carrot swirls, carrot curliques, and carrot spirals.
Now we’re left with the question: What’s up with Carrot Conspiracy in Ashland.? What is it really about?
We have our theory. But we wanted to collaborate and seek out other possible explanations.
We sent a sample of the orange sticks to The Tidings to see if their journalists wanted to investigate. A pile of the sticks was left on the editor’s desk. A reporter wandered by and exclaimed:
“Eewww. What is that mess? It looks like remnants from a POTUS haircut.”
The reporter was promptly terminated for disparaging a great American.
(Editor’s Note: Don’t think we will be hearing back from The Tidings. The fired guy informed us orange was their favorite color and their least favorite color is Jamie McLeod-Skinner.)
However, we did hear back from Vegie News and World Report. Their staff suggested the Carrot Conspiracy was instigated by the sugar industry. Vegie News smuggled to us classified memos written to A.G. Barr from high-on-sugar lobbyists about their efforts to convince Americans to replace vegetables in their salads with orange M-n-M’s, tomato-colored Life Savers, and romaine lettuce made from green cotton candy. Editor-in-chief Alice Asparagus warned us to beware. Duly noted.
Here’s our theory:
We believe the Carrot Conspiracy is a dastardly trick concocted by Ashland’s City Hall BuBu’s (Bumbling Bureaucrats) to take our minds off real problems in our fair (and many times not-so-fair) city. If you’re worried about what you’re eating, you might not have the time or energy to be worried about other Ashlandia issues, such as:
– Smoke and climate change.
– A $2 million budget shortfall. And more taxes coming to cover this deficit?
– An overly-large amount of City Hall positions and bloated salaries.
– Lack of affordable housing.
– City Hall BuBu’s trying to hoodwink Ashlanders into approving luxury accommodations for a new City Hall.
– The Fire Department and Police Department requesting more personnel with no money to pay for the increase.
– The safety of women.
– Canals, ditches, hog farms.
– Lack of decent-wage jobs. (Not spa salon or restaurant jobs where an employee is “on call” and may or may not get shift hours but is required to be available.)
– A council full of BuBu’s like Stromberg, Rosenthal, Slattery, and Jensen with their good-ol’-boys unprogressive mentality.
– An incompetent, good-ol’-boys cabal at Parks & Recreation like Black, Lewis, Landt, and Gardiner.
– Five women losing their jobs at the Senior Center to ensure the old-thinking white male power structure remains dominant.
– A proposal to chop down two healthy Douglas Fir trees and the hypocrisy of then promoting Arbor Day.
– A city engineer losing his job due to political reasons.
– Non-transparency about the number of lawsuits the City of Ashland is involved with year after year.
– Women in positions of power/influence who don’t support other women — like Seffinger, Dials, and Bachman.
(Editor’s Note: Women without a sense of sisterhood is a sad situation. Women who dump on other women to suck up to men or advance their own agenda is a disgusting one.)
– A lack-luster, ineffectual Chamber of Commerce (too much nepotism in the air?) who don’t realize the future is female.
– The Oregon Shakespeare Festival declining in popularity which causes an economic decline citywide.
(Editor’s suggestion to OSF: No more theatrically-graphic sexual assault scenes like in “Timon of Athens.” Will lose customers. Forever.)
– City Hall and the peace community pretending Ashland is an International City of Peace. At times City Hall is governed with spite, retaliation, and plain ol’ meanness — which by the way is not peaceful. Hou les cornes! Yes, much shame on them.
(Editor’s Note: Bullet point #3 is a load of crap.)
Also wacky: Peace People traipsing to New York to attend the 63rd session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women — which is committed to endorsing women’s rights, equality, and empowerment — and then somehow associating Ashland, Oregon with this noble goal. Huh?
(Editor’s Note: Cue John McEnroe – “You cannot be serious!”)
What does Ashland’s City Hall do to promote/protect/empower women? Ask Mayor BuBu John Stromberg what his concerns were during the Parks & Rec recall. Besides stating that the recall would be the death of electoral politics (which it wasn’t–but notice the fear tactic), his concern was about the humiliation level of the three male commissioners involved. He had ZERO concern for the five women who were shoved out the door for bogus reasons.
Then a guy named Doug writes a letter to The Tidings interpreting the mindset of one of the Female Five–saying she is “still smarting” from the Senior Center Debacle (another Michael Black production). What is the statute of limitations on being bothered that you were wrongfully deprived of your job? Being bothered that your long-time dedication and loyalty were unappreciated and grounds for disrespect?
Are the Female Five just supposed to step aside and say, “OK guys, we accept your idiocy and brutish behavior as our exemplary job performance, professional careers, and sense of worth/dignity are not relevant in Ashland.”
This is NOT empowering women. This is NOT peaceful conduct. This IS reality in Ashland.
Peace People: Wake up and smell the patriarchy.
To sum up: We need better government; a better mindset; and better carrots.
P.S. From the Editor:
1. Merci beaucoup, Pierre. Tremendous job presenting your translation of the American expression: “Food for thought.” Also, noticed on your expense report a line item charge for dark chocolate Crème Brûlée from Hearsay. Next time, bring back a sample!
2. Readers: Don’t be fooled by errant orange things. They may not be what you think they are.
These are not carrots:
This guy may be orange but he is not a carrot. He is also not a President.
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