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Prayer for You
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Newzak Plebiscite
And now... WELCOME TO NEWZAK PLEBISCITE! Newzak Plebiscite is the show where you vote for which versions of the news you want to believe -- and which you don't. To participate in this electronic town hall, simply visualize yourself holding a palm-sized gizmo adorned with red, blue, and yellow buttons. As you read each bite-sized piece of newzak below, imagine pressing the blue button if you want the newzak to be true, the red button if you want it to be false, or the yellow button if you'd like to say "who cares"? Ready? 1. Every time an actor portraying a doctor performs a particular kind of surgery on a popular soap opera, real doctors begin performing that same surgery at a dramatically higher rate in real hospitals. 2. The calcium in your bones and the iron in your blood were originally forged at the core of a giant red star that died more than a billion years ago. 3. Most of our greatest artists have sold or leased their souls to the advertising industry. Geniuses who in days past might have been Leonardos or Van Goghs now pound out stunning propaganda for Calvin Klein and Diet Coke. 4. The real problem is not overpopulation. It's overpopulation by the wrong people. 5. A Sufi real estate magnate has announced plans to build a chain of sacred shopping centers in the American heartland. 6. You would sell your life story to the highest bidder if you had the chance. 7. The CIA now has dolphin surveillance teams spying on the homeless in underground sewer systems. 8. Freedom of the press belongs to those who can afford to own a press. Even more freedom of the press accrues to those who promote the kind of information that advertisers like to subsidize. 9. As the gap between rich and poor grows wider, poor people are turning to ever-more colorful acts to raise money. Some have sold their organs to hospitals that use them for transplants. Some have contracted to be tattooed with product advertisements. Some of the most desperate homeless people have broken into prisons and demanded to be jailed in order to ensure themselves regular meals and warm places to sleep. 10. Everyone who believes in the devil is the devil. 11. Every night, about three million people all over the planet dream of building an ark in a bottle. 12. Because intellectuals consume huge amounts of second- and third-hand information, they are more susceptible to propaganda than any other social group. 13. Scientists at the University of California are currently researching the possibilities of using genetic engineering to develop crops that thrive on acid rain and industrial waste. 14. Most Americans would vote against the Bill of Rights if it were presented to them in a referendum. 15. The best-selling book in the history of the world, the Bible, teaches that polygamy and slavery are morally acceptable. 16. You're just pretending to be crazy so you can get away with doing what's right. 17. The average length of an act of heterosexual intercourse in North America -- which has been an appalling four minutes since records began to be kept 42 years ago -- has recently seen a dramatic surge to 18 minutes. 18. In an average conversation, women ask 70 percent of the questions and men do 96 percent of the interrupting. 19. TV commercials for flu and cold remedies are scientifically formulated to induce coughs, sneezes, and fevers in the average viewer. They're disguised curses, working through the power of suggestion to infect you with a need for the product they're advertising. 20. It takes ten times more information to change your mind than it did to make up your mind in the first place. 21. Many seemingly nice people cynically use honesty, cheerfulness, and openness to manipulate others into doing things their way. 22. Big drug companies no longer invest in the research and development of a new drug if it's a cure for a relatively rare disease that wouldn't affect enough people to generate a substantial profit. 23. If you put your lover's hand in a pail of water while he's sleeping, he will tell all his secrets. 24. A biologist at the University of Texas has announced that he has developed a machine for measuring emotional pain. Moralists of every stripe have reacted quickly, claiming the device will prove their favorite victims suffer more than the favorite victims of other moralists. 25. Everyone in the world secretly died of disinfotainment while watching a holocaust of boring love on TV during a global nuclear war in 2000, and we are living in paradise at this very moment. |
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© 1995-2008 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved
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