Harry Mantle And The Magical Choice Machine

Welfare Queen Sighting
On KPCC's Airtalk with
Larry Mantle

Great fantasy tale broadcast on a local NPR outlet, KPCC in Los Angeles. Wasn't aware that there was a large young-adult demographic listening to the public radio on a weekday, but you just never know. I mean, these people in radio must know what they're doing, or they wouldn't be in radio. Makes sense if you think about it.

"Many people can't feed their children!" cried the woman, who claimed to be some sort of social services employee. Harry, however, could easily guess that she was in fact a subversive apparatchik of COMINTERN. He always knew, because any mention of social injustice always triggered his magical supply-side ring. It now glowed eerily, warning of the presence of the worst demon of them all: The welfare queen.
Harry knew that there was only one thing to do, which he had never successfully done before: Cast the long, difficult CHOICE spell!
"You know what?", asked Harry of the woman. "These poor miserable wretches could simply use
the magical power of CHOICE. Look at my choices: I chose parents who would spend money and time to educate me, never knowing that the product of their investment would choose to be a self-centered tub of lard who uses his 'show' to give completely ignorant advice and opinions about nutrition and the cost of healthy food, or the global warming, or economics, or pretty much anything that hasn't been part of the Republican party line since the Social Security Act of 1935. I maintain my employment by exercising my choice to have no original thoughts of my own but simply use my show to create a patina of centrist moderation over the same old brutal policies. You don't think the the establishment here at KPCC actually wants to change anything for the unwashed masses, do you? Needless to say, none of those choices involve riding a bicycle."
Harry Mantle went on: "I also exercise my prerogative not to have been born an African-American or a non-native speaker. That makes it much easier to remain blissfully unaware of the advantages of my generation had during the rise in equality following WW2 and the inequality voted in by people of my generation as we decided to do anything but worry about ourselves and screw the future generations and uh oh here comes global warming and we're all fucked. I'm old and nearly dead so screw you future kids, hey I got mine and I'm out of here, but first you get to pay an immigrant to diaper my ass the last 30 years of my life, you're welcome."
And just like that, the subversive equality demon vanished, and the imbalance of supply and demand was restored. 

The Future Will Be Hunky-Dory

From KPCC And Larry Mantle's Airtalk: Dan Gardner, Author Of Future Babble

Larry Mantle: So it's my understanding that predictions are pretty much always wrong. Right?


Dan Gardner: You are correct sir. For example, some guy predicted that there would be worldwide famine by the 70's but there wasn't.

Larry Mantle: So true. Pollution just takes care of itself. We used to have air pollution in Los Angeles and then it just went away. I believe it was just a random fluctuation.

Dan Gardner: Exactly--that's why the future is unpredictable. It's all random chaos. That's why science doesn't work. How do we know that everyone will die eventually? Maybe some people won't.

Mantle: And the population problem just went away too.

Gardner: Exactly. And that guy who said that refused to change his predictions.

Mantle: I think that proves that there was nothing to worry about in the first place. And I can't think of any holes in your theory; I mean, if I don't see famine, poverty, or malnutrition outside my front door, they don't exist.

Gardner: They don't. As we know, the time between now and the 70's is about the same time span as the dinosaurs lived on the planet, and since we haven't seen any significant changes over those eons, there will surely be none to worry about.

Mantle: You're so right. Water and sunlight are infinite in supply, that's why a pine tree can grow all the way to the moon.

Gardner: No reason it couldn't.

Mantle: And I'm sure multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is another liberal myth to scare us, just like lead poisoning.  Coming up next: Food riots in the Middle East and North Africa spur revolt. Later I will be hosting an "Objectivity In Journalism" event where I will probably be asked, "Why haven't you been Huell Howser'd into tasting pies in Central California, you senile old git?"

Well, there you have it, folks: The kind of objective journalism you can only find here at KPCC or pretty much an AM station run by daft right-wing loons.



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