Local Tensions Mount As Yet Another Area Herd Falls Under Insidious Communist Domination

In yet another crushing blow to the self-esteem and self-image of the 2nd smallest town in the Great State of Washington, for the third time in as many weeks a seemingly docile and placid herd of bovines has thrown off the yoke of tyranny and risen up against their oppressors in order to set up a so-called ‘Grazers Paradise’ right here in the Palouse, for crying out loud! This herd, formerly belonging to Scooter Bodine, age 57, finally took matters into their own hands after decades of exploitation, being subject to the yearly “culls” where loved ones are unceremoniously dragged off in the middle of the night and never seen again, where all the young males are shamelessly castrated on a yearly basis for the boss-man’s sadistic pleasure – as well as the daily indignities of having to endure the smell of those constant BBQ’s from the big rancher house (that is really a single-wide trailer – but is a lot fancier than the barn that never even gets a lick of paint or might get shoveled out once or twice a year, given that area farmer laziness that seems to pervade this small part of the Palouse, anyway!) and that same house, of course, is set on a hill so that it can look down on the herd, both physically and metaphorically. “Good gravy, man! That is the third time in as many weeks that a herd just went nuts!” bellowed Chester Festoon, 56, an area rancher whose herd is now showing signs of discontentment and restlessness after decades of supposed ‘peaceful coexistence’. “Heck, that is the natural order of things! The ranchers are on the top and can derive as much benefit and profit from the bodies of the cows as we see fit – and the cows are just supposed to sit there as we exploit them so we can earn enough money for our annual trip to that vacation wonderland – Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for crying out loud! That’s the way the dadburn system works!” he ranted passionately, bordering on a really annoying temper-tantrum. “Those dern cows are put on this earth to enrich us just like our Cow Church says, and regardless of how awfully we treat them or how often we forget to take hay out to them in the dry months, it is their part of the bargain to just stand their dumbly and act like cows – not like a bunch of hot-blooded revolutionaries with all those banners and slogans who seem hell-bent on setting up some sort of bovine utopia where all fences are laid low, where the artificial distinction of the herd is done away with, and where each cow must give according to its ability while receiving according to its needs! That’s just insane! How does a rancher fit into that scenario? Where do I fit in under than new global paradigm? And what the heck am I supposed to do if that nonsense infects my herd! I can hardly bring myself to drive out to inspect the herd with all of those "stink eyes' those dang cows give me now! Its a powder keg out there, I tell you! And I just bought a new, only slightly used flatbed truck with those cool exhaust pipes that stick up about 12 feet and make all that noise and the wife just put a 5 year supply of jumbo sized ‘Daisy Duke shorts’ on our dadburn credit card! (that was darn near maxed out from all those pork rind purchases! Whoa!) That is the last thing I need right now – this crazy bovine insurrection nonsense that is committed to destroying the established order of things! This is all just so disconcerting and confusing! Dang it all! I knew I should have stayed in school past the 8th grade – then maybe I might be able to figure out what to do!” he sniveled annoyingly! "Oh daddy, I know I was a rotten son, but please come back from the grave to tell me what to do with the commie infested herd! I know I was the dumbest of your sons so of course I inherited the ranch and all, but I need you now, daddy! Oh, daddy!" he whined pathetically while falling to his knees and sobbing!

“Well, with the fall of the Berlin Wall all those decades ago, Americans somehow grew complacent and lost their vigilance in the face of what was the biggest threat to our capitalistic system in the 20th century” said Dr. Festus Snopes, an area bovine political scientist. “So, it is somewhat ironic that the minute we no longer have to obsess over all of those ‘communist hoards’ sweeping over us, now we are faced with something even more diabolical and frightening – ‘communist herds’!! (Okay, we know you saw that one coming a mile away!) And these dern caldrons of political instability are right in our own backyard – and in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and maybe even in the District of Columbia, although the nation’s capitol has always been a hotbed of leftist commie intrigue and so that is no real surprise, if you think about it. I just don’t see how the Good Ol’ USA is going to pull these chestnuts from the fire of international revolutionary bovine zeal and all of that. I do find it ironic that the commie masterminds would see fit to unleash their nefarious plans at the nation’s weakest point – the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) where farmers and ranchers are against libraries, flush toilets, painting town buildings after 60 years of decay, one-man-one-vote, and where even area church leaders support drunken mobs to help undermine the existing American institutions that we all take for granted - to say nothing about supporting the local crime families against the existing governmental entities tasked with maintaining law and order. Yep, they struck at America’s weakest point – and now there will be hell to pay for all of us!” he said gravely while rushing down into his root cellar with 3-4 cases of cheap beer, just in case things go south more quickly than expected!

Royal News: Century West Engineering's Erika, “The Parrot Princess”, Is The Biological Sister Of Notorious “Baroness d'Bon-Bon”

In a stunning testament that breeding and genetic lineage is in fact 98.6% of success in life after all, in spite of all of that ‘make hay while the sun shines’, 'a stitch in time, saves nine' and, of course, that stupid ‘keep your nose to the grindstone’ nonsense that people, mainly parents, mother-in-laws and those pesky employers, like to endlessly yammer on about - an area gathering of seemingly normal citizens were observed chanting “We are not worthy, Lea!!” and “Baroness d'Bon-bon! Baroness d'Bon-bon!” after a local man allowed a few choice intimates to sample a shockingly generous assortment of homemade bon-bons given to him by Lea, the sister of Erika of Century West Engineering fame, aka ‘The uber-goddess of efficiency’. These said bon-bons, if that inadequate and decidedly plebeian term can be used in regard to such culinary excellence, (like calling the Mona Lisa 'one of them old paintings' or whatever!) were the source of widespread civil discord after proving once and for all that ‘No one can eat just one”.

“Well, I was trying to be nice and all and give a few of the church ladies a taste of excellence and refinement long absent in the stodgy wastes of Eastern Washington when the next thing I knew I was being pummeled senseless by countless purses as the suddenly enraged and desperate mob of normally genteel and erudite church ladies made a kamikaze lunge for my not unlimited bon-bon bag” said an area man who, although his bloodline and genetic lineage is suspect (to say the least!!) somehow befriended the quite capable and efficient Erika (truth be known, she took pity on the poor wretch, and made some vain and futile attempt to ‘rescue’ him from his own inane and self-destructive nature although his obviously inferior genetic makeup and decidedly withered family tree negated these gallant efforts quite easily) and thus she gave him some of these rare and beautiful ‘bon-bons’ made by her equally excellent and quite capable sister, Lea, the so-called 'Baroness' from the "Bon-bon region' of one of those European countries over there or whatever, late last week.

“So, when I finally regained consciousness and managed to splash a little cold water on all of those facial bruises shaped just like purse buckles, I happened to glance around the corner and there they were, joined by their men-folk now, on bended knee, rumps pointing gallantly at the sky, pleading in the general direction of Erika’s outrageously talented and obviously generous sister Lea for more of the smooth, creamy, dainty delicacies (That pack a chocolate punch! Whoa!) and that were so good even a man would eat them! Sadly for all of us, there were any number of professional plumbers in the kneeling crowd, and to be quite honest, I could very easily go the rest of my life without witnessing that horrid sight again! Whatever happened to Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no to crack’ campaign, anyway? And right there in church, too!! Needless to say, the sight of those pasty white horrors pretty much turned me away from food in general, although those homemade bon-bons exist on some higher plane than that, so it was with no small amount of sadness that I glanced down at my feet (where he was missing one shoe from that unfortunate melee!) and saw the battered remains of the once proud bon-bon bag, ripped asunder as if by the fury of a 1000 hounds of hell, with traces of what appeared to be human saliva still glistening in the gentle Spring sunlight. It was all very disconcerting and confusing!” he stammered pathetically. (Let the record show that this poor sap did in fact get his butt whooped by a bunch of matronly, AARP card-carrying church ladies! Oh, how sad is that? Oh, the shame must be unbearable!)

(Editorial Note: As of this writing, 100’s of area residents are going door-to-door, randomly canvassing the Greater Spokane Metropolitan Area, desperately inquiring “Are you Lea, Erika’s sister? Do you know where her Ladyship the Baroness Lea lives?” and/or frantically attempting to capture the scent of fresh, delicious chocolate somehow wafting, by chance, on the gentle breeze. And for the record, allocating differing titles to sisters with all those decades of sibling rivalry is, of course, a wise and prudent move. (Thus one is a princess and one a baroness! Plus, baroness and bon-bon both start with 'B', which somehow makes sense, we guess!) If you are ever dern fool enough to go running off half cocked and inadvertently give two sisters the same title, well, it is safe to assume that you are more than likely hours or even minutes away from a hair pulling, no-holds-barred chick fight - so it is just generally prudent to provide at least a modicum of differentiation, however superficial or symbolic that distinction may in fact be. Thank you!)

“Enough time has passed already! Lamont now needs a flush toilet!” Warns Powerful Local Samurai Warlord

Another influential and potentially cranky area resident has decided ‘enough is enough’ and has thrown his considerable prestige, not to mention his quite impressive hand-to-hand combat skills, in with the growing chorus of people who now feel that Lamont has gone long enough without a device that most other real, normal, fully-functioning towns have had for well over 100 years, the obviously misunderstood yet humble 'flush toilet'. Mr. Toranaga, when he is not out crushing his enemies or throwing invading Mongol hoards back into the sea where they belong, lives at 1102 Garfield St in Lamont where he tends his rock garden, writes haiku poetry in some strange language that doesn’t even use real letters, and has friends over for some highly ritualized tea ceremony that no Westerner could ever really understand. (and that takes about 8 hours to complete, for Pete's sake!)

“Well, this is bushido!” said the outwardly calm yet obviously agitated local warlord whose bloodline stretches back unbroken for over 200 generations – almost as long as the Emperor of Japan's himself. “It is bad enough that the area firefighters thought they could fight fires the way Japanese peasants fought them in the 16th Century – by carting water in buckets to the fire – and although the buckets these people chose to use were somewhat bigger, the concept was still the same – only the scale was different. So, just like using a fire hydrant is an idea whose time has come, it is also time for Lamont to break out of its shocking lethergy and put in a flush toilet. I mean, come on!” said Toranaga-sama in a calm, cool voice that lets everyone know that heads are about to roll, quite literally, if his sage advice is not heeded promptly. “Heck, in rural Japan in the 15th and 16th centuries, using your Western calendar, of course, even the most primitive of Eta or the lowliest shopkeeper could manage some kind of setup for the so-called ‘call of nature’. So, if these uneducated peasants could manage this feat over 500 years ago, can someone please tell me why Lamont has not been able to accomplish this after 100 years of being a town in the country that put a man on the moon? Sheesh! That is pretty sad" he said thoughtfully while shaking that big helmet-looking thing with those frightening although somewhat impractical horns back and forth or whatever.

(Editorial Note: The term ‘Bushido’ refers to the Samurai code of conduct, and should not be confused with a similar local word that somehow refers to one of several of those unfortunate ‘cow byproducts’ that make Lamont so famous. So before you church ninnies go getting all up in arms shouting from the rooftops “The Lamont Blog cussed, the Lamont Blog cussed!!”, might we suggest you do a little research, maybe in the soon to be open Lamont Library, and/or read the quite excellent book “Shogun” by James Clavell. I know reading a book will naturally lower your social standing within your relative social network, but opening up yourself to the world can only provide a level of comfort and understanding that is so obviously lacking in a life filled with watching cows graze, badmouthing the Town, shoveling manure (same thing as badmouthing the Town!!) and watching Gunsmoke reruns while eating pork rinds. Thank you!)

Area Cattleman Church Releases Own Version Of “10 Commandments” With Controversial “Unless Thou Owneth Cows” Clause Tacked To Each

In yet another sad episode in the long, slow decline of Christianity in this part of America, an area cow church finally put into writing what they have long agreed to and felt when they decided to have special bibles printed (with cow hide covers, no less!) that modified the once written in stone ’10 Commandments’ to something that more closely matches their actual world view and the way they have treated others for as long as anyone in these parts can remember. These area ‘church members’ have long assumed and acted like the petty, demeaning rules of man didn’t apply to them, so in reality this slight expansion (to them) of exempting themselves from the Laws of God is not that big of a deal, or so they claim at every opportunity. “Heck, what is all the fuss about?” asked Wilber Snopes, 54, an area cow church board member. “We own cows, and God is the one who gave us those cows, although we, of course, take all the credit, and so do you really think He would have given us those cows with all the local snob appeal that holds if He intended for those silly rules to apply to us – like they apply to those stupid, cow-less, non-rancher saps who we farm-folk all look down upon with disgust and loathing? You know, my daddy got this here land from his daddy who got it free from the government, and I in turn got it from my old man, so thank goodness the laws of inheritance enable our obnoxious, earthy family behavior to be passed from generation to generation, slowly poisoning the whole dern area unto death!” he said with a crazy mixture of pride and genuine exasperation with the confusion over cow ownership being the lynch-pin of true human dominance. “Heck, we are obviously God’s chosen cow-owning people and can do what the dern heck we want, even if that goes against the very bible itself, because when you have cows that means the rules (for those little people!) don’t apply to you, regardless of who makes them – even the Lord Himself, right?" he gushed blasphemously with the twinkle in the eye of the truly insane. "And as our church proves, you can make that there so-called bible say any dern thing you want it to, as long as you are dealing with bible illiterates. We are living proof of that concept, yes sir!" he stammered smugly.

"How else do you think we as a group could oppose using fire hydrants in the town with a clear conscience, even though that put the lives and property of those pathetic cow-less losers at greater risk? And how do you think we managed to sleep like little babies when we shamelessly and inappropriately injected ourselves into town politics for decades on end to ensure the town withered on the vine, (while ignoring their actual bible-defined mission!!) even though the bible, which we obviously love to use as a weapon, not as a guide for our own behavior as it was intended, clearly states that we should “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”? Oh yeah, and how else could we oppose the new library after shamelessly ginning up (no pun intended!) a drunken mob to oppose it, even though we do not live within the town and don’t have an actual legal say in the matter, although our misplaced pride and obnoxious controlling natures demand that we shamelessly meddle in everyone else’s lives while not giving ours even a second thought? Oh, and of course we worship on Sunday, the historical day for worship of the 'Sun god", although the 4th Commandment clearly says to remember the Sabbath (Friday evening at sunset to Saturday evening at sunset) – but of course we know better than whoever wrote that thing and, of course, that gives us the opportunity to follow our actual spiritual role model, the shamelessly pagan Roman leader Constantine, who unilaterally changed the date of Christian worship so that the various 'Sun' worshiping pagan groups (thus "Sunday') in the Roman empire would not go getting all upset and go tearing up the place or whatever. (you know how those pagan types tend to fly off the handle at the drop of the hat and are just looking for a reason to revolt or whatever!) Now that was a man who understood how to use Christianity for worldly political and financial gain! One cannot help but admire the man for that! What a genius! I even named my favorite cow Constantine!" he said proudly while pulling a photo of the suspect bovine from his wallet.

"So, you don’t do all those sort of things as a so-called church for decades on end if you are beholden to some supposed book that tells you what you can and can't do. That would just be so limiting, wouldn’t it? How silly! And who cares if there is not a single, solitary person from the town who attends our cow church (who doesn’t work there and derive benefit from the enterprise, that is) – because none of them townie losers actually own cows, now do they – and who would want people like that who are so obviously in disfavor with the Lord sitting next to you in the doggone pew, for crying out loud?? (Those cow-less wretches don't even have the decency to have a fresh coating of manure on their fancy church boots or whatever like a proper cow-churcher should! That fact alone would just be so culturally out of context for the setting and thus inappropriate!!) The very fact that we have cows shows the world and certainly that stupid town that we all want to see slowly die thru neglect and strife that we are in His favor and thus His true inquisitor-like emissaries, and thus we can treat the other area residents as badly and with as much real contempt and scorn as we want. That is half the fun of owning cows! I am just sad that burning people at the stake went out of style all those years ago. Now that would set the cotton-pickin' pecking order in these parts once and for all, now wouldn't it? Hey! We own cows! They don't!! Can’t you see that? It can't get much clearer than that!” he fumed with genuine confusion and befuddlement while maliciously cramming the malodorous toe of his brightly colored, manure-encrusted cowboy boot (with all that fancy flowery stitching!) into some unfortunate mole's hole - thus forcing the poor thing to move it's small family to another part of the yard to get away from the smell, for Pete's sake!

(Editorial Note: For the sake of brevity, we left off the part about the 'Cow Church's' somewhat ironic fascination with their own much-revered 'golden calf', given that that said golden calf in this case is in fact their own narcissistic, self-absorbed and obviously inflated sense of self-importance and supposed superiority over others, mainly those living in the poor town of Lamont. That whole concept was just too complex and outrageous (to say nothing of shocking/troubling!) to try to explain in the space alloted by this humble yet obviously frugal news organ. Thank you!!)

Lamont Blog Stock Price Plummets On News Of Coming Global Shortage Of Wacky Parrot-Related Stories

The Lamont Blog, a 'Fortune 500' Wall Street powerhouse and vast media empire whose influence and reputation since its founding in 2008 has almost stretched to the Adams County line in Eastern Washington, faced a vast sell-off after industry analysts predicted that Erika, that so-called ‘uber-goddess of efficiency’ from the best engineering firm in the whole darn world, Century West, was “experiencing overall life contentment’ and thus was expected to be ‘too busy’ and ‘doing more important, truly meaningful things’ to produce one of the vital core ingredients that has made the Lamont Blog the media titan that it is, whatever that means, anyway.

“The Lamont Blog has dominated the media market in far, far, far Northwest Whitman County, WA with a somewhat 'unique and varied' mix of cutting-edge real-life news articles on topics ranging from unfortunate alien encounters, cows, citizens who refuse to modernize past the year 1700, cows, area church politics, cows, in-depth and disturbingly accurate psychological profiles of area ranchers (not the national ones! Whoa! We have a unique situation out here, people!), and, of course, cows – with a recent Pulitzer Prize winning expose’ on the area fire fighters not wanting to use a simple fire hydrant, if anyone can believe that one, (yes, it does stretch credulity!) but the bedrock and true anchor of their media empire has always been the occasional parrot story and the messes those crazy birds can get themselves into” said Wilber Vanderbilt III, a senior Wall Street Analyst. “And given the tenuous global economy and the fact that improved social and economic conditions have necessitated that the world’s primary source of parrot trivia, a certain Erika, is now primarily focused on her nice family, her cutting edge job with an engineering powerhouse, hob-nobbing with 'the beautiful people', and, of course, managing her quite successful regional ‘parrot rescue’ program, so the Lamont Blog is basically left high and dry to twist in the wind!” said analyst Vanderbilt from his fancy-pants New York City office. “A shortage of parrot related stories and/or the raw materials that compose them has always been the Lamont Blog’s strategic ‘Achilles Heel’, and we had no choice but to downgrade the Lamont Blog stock evaluation after Erika released a somewhat terse statement saying she was ‘just too busy now-a-days’ and that she ‘just didn’t have time to share stories that no one ever reads!”.

Shares of the Lamont Blog (NYSE: Lablog) traded sharply lower at the opening bell, trading at $62.47, down from their yearly high of $146.21 achieved earlier this year when a boxing kangaroo beat the tar out of the whole darn town and the Lamont Blog had a basic monopoly on that outrageous undertaking. “I just don’t see how the Lamont Blog can recover from this level of international parrot-related insecurity, not in today’s over-crowded Blog environment and with the dollar in the shape that it is in!” said Vanderbilt. “The sun might be setting on the Lamont Blog after all, thanks to that obviously industrious Erika having a happy, fun-filled, rewarding, rich life where she cannot be bothered with industry ‘show-stoppers’ like a somewhat steady stream of parrot lore - like that time the dern bird of hers imitated the oven timer at a family gathering, ruining the Christmas turkey as some sort of greater avian social protest or like when that parrot she adopted decided to raise a whole doggone litter of abandoned kittens, just to show that the species doesn’t carry a grudge!!” The Lamont Blog did not return phone calls for this article, presumably because they are sniveling about the unfairness of it all and/or because they are fixing up their house so they can move to New Mexico, should the weather ever remain good enough to actually finish up all that ‘outside stuff’.

Entire Nation Jubilant After Troublemaking Cow, ‘Rosie Bin Grazin’ Dispatched To Meat Processing Plant In Daring Midnight Raid

A thankful sigh of relief was released by the nation’s collective throats after America’s ‘Public Bovine Enemy #1’ was finally brought to justice after years of unspeakable outrages like head-butting other members of the herd, going to the bathroom on the fresh hay and, of course, hogging the saltlick when other cows were obviously waiting. Bin Grazin, age 4, came from an affluent Oregon ranch and was raised in relative luxury, but was expelled from the herd of its birth after showing signs of anti-social behavior that only got worse over the years. (Of course the beastly bovine would end up in Lamont! Oh, why is it always thus?) “Well, this is truly a remarkable day for all Americans!” said Peter Turnkey, a Food and Drug Administration representative currently on a top-secret assignment with Homeland Security. “It took many years, but finally the full intelligence assets of the United States were able to track this monster to a secluded gulch out behind the Bodine ranch 7 miles outside of Lamont, WA! This is an intelligence success of the first order, and credit needs to go to those brave heroes who risked their lives in bringing this sad saga to a close for all of us! May God continue to bless the United States of America! We have so much to be thankful for! USA! USA! USA! USA!” he gushed insanely.

“Well, we got the call at approximately 11:27 PM and were ordered to pack our gear and ship out in under 30 minutes” said Wilbur Snopes, 24, one of the farm hand heroes who was on the clandestine late night mission. “Sure, things were tense as we all loaded onto the back of one of those flatbed trucks that seem to be all the rage in the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA). Although fear is a natural byproduct of this sort of mission and needs to be controlled and channeled, never denied, we just all had to fall back on our training and hope that our lassoes and cattle prods didn’t fail us when things got hot. We just did what we were trained for – and things went our way, thank goodness. We were all very fortunate, but those long hours of reading farm supply catalogs and observing the herd from afar certainly paid dividends when the chips were down. This country is very fortunate to have a trained core cadre of bovine professionals upon which to call when the big tasks need to go down – and thankfully I am one of those rare and quite extraordinary individuals with the talents, bravery, gumption and verve that this nation obviously cannot live without!” he said with the usual outrageous lack of farmer modesty and grossly inflated sense of self-importance.

At approximately 12:02 PM PST, Farm Hand Squad # 6 were delivered to the forbidding, isolated gulch and immediately engaged a number of other cows who were obviously there to protect Bin Grazin. After a brief skirmish where as many of 6 of these co-conspirators had to be wrestled to the ground rodeo fashion and hog-tied or calf-roped or whatever that is called, the team was eventually able to confront Bin Grazin directly. The team leader, Bubba Bodine, 46, made the offer for Bin Grazin to surrender, but the committed trouble-maker chose to fight it out to the end so the insertion team had no choice but to use force and man-handle the reprobate into a waiting cattle truck that immediately began the long haul to that meat processing plant in Idaho with an armed escort of trained ranchers to ensure a ‘Mission Accomplished’ once and for all so the opportunistic Democrats can't whine and wring their hands in mock outrage (like a bunch of ninnies!!) for decades to come. Although local and national leaders are naturally pleased with the outcome of this daring mission, they caution their fellow Americans that just because one trouble-making cow was finally brought to justice, there is still a dangerous network of bovine extremists out there that can still make our lives a living hell at a time and place of their choosing. Insiders report that Bin Grazin would have, in fact, been buried at sea, but we live in Eastern Washington and it is a long way to the ocean, (where that fancy-pants Long Beach is!) and with the price of beef on the hoof being what it is, that just didn't seem sensible somehow, if you think about it.

Escaped Boxing Kangaroo Runs Amok, Somehow ‘KO’s” Whole Dern Town!!

In yet another crushing blow to small town America in general and Eastern Washington in particular, the entire town of Lamont was rendered senseless in a matter of minutes after a cute, sweet, lovable kangaroo just passing thru with a travelling circus got loose and proceeded to ‘open up a couple of cans of whoop tush’ for no doggone reason, late Tuesday. The circus, one of those small outfits that travel from town to town bringing joy and happiness to millions of children, somehow got lost and ended up on that fateful Highway 23 that runs right past Lamont, a town that has enough problems without some doggone animal that ain’t even from America pummeling the entire citizenry into unconsciousness in less time than it takes to throw a couple of shrimp on the ‘barbie’ or whatever, for Pete’s sake.

“Well, I am not sure what triggered him! We’ve never seen him just go nuts like that before!” said Martin Weaver, the stunned circus owner. “We noticed him getting a little antsy in has cage the closer we got to Lamont, but as soon as we passed Lamont Road, he just picked the lock, hopped down the road towards the town and the next thing we knew there were bodies laying everywhere. Oh, it was horrid. It was like he just sensed that something was just not right there and in some sort of heroic animal sort of way, I think he was trying to protect humanity from whatever it is about Lamont that makes it – well – Lamont” he said with a mixture of pride, admiration and some residual fear. “Kangaroos are peace loving animals. We just can’t understand what set him off!” he concluded.

'So, I heard a knock on the door and I just assumed it was one of those boys who drive all over town day or night trying to borrow money that they will never pay back - when the next thing I knew this tall, lanky brown blur gave me a couple of jabs to the bread basket then an uppercut that sent me to the tattered carpet I have been meaning to replace in my living-room" said Melba Festoon, 82, an area farm/ranch matriarch and general busybody/nose bag. "And the next thing I knew I heard this hopping sound going down my sidewalk and there was a similar knock on Old Lady Bodine's door next-door. I hope that dern kangaroo really let her have it for stealing my peanut butter battered rocky mountain oyster recipe and giving it to all her friends! I'll never forgive that woman over that one!" she fumed, holding a piece of liver to her now blackening eye!

“Oh, nice! That is all we need right now!” said a former mayor who asked not to be identified with the town. “Sure, when I was the mayor, we had issues like firefighters not wanting to use a million dollar fire hydrant system – and then everyone got mad when we painted the fire station after 60 years of decay, and there was a minor rancher revolt when we bought the first town vehicle after 98 years of being a town, and there was that little insane event related to people protesting getting a new library and folks wanting to park fire trucks in the darn thing right next to the encyclopedias! Yeah, those were bad enough – humiliating to all Americans, in fact, but at least on my watch the entire citizenry didn't get their butts kicked by some travelling marsupial with an attitude problem and a sense of social justice! Oh, thank goodness that didn't happen on my watch! Oh, every cloud does indeed have a silver lining!” he sighed thankfully.

Town of Lamont On “Short List” For 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, Insiders Report

The Town of Lamont, a humble berg with fewer than 100 souls nestled tightly against the icy bosom of the Scablands in the eastern portion of the Great State of Washington, once again is drawing international attention after their new, highly capable mayor (and who says that actually doing something cannot ever be an asset, even in this part of the Wheat Belt!) and a largely reshaped Town Council finally managed to get a binding agreement ensuring fire hydrant usage in the town, thus ending the so-called 'Hydrant Wars", in spite of the fact that many local citizens and a sizable portion of the area farmers/ranchers (many of them fire fighters or having fire fighters in their families!) were dead set against using the doggone things in case of a fire emergency because that would be 'doing something new', for crying out loud! (This is Lamont, after all! It took the town 98 years to buy their first vehicle!) This ‘rapprochement’, if one may be so bold as to use a foreign word that means ‘coming together’ or something like that, has drawn the admiration and appreciation of peace advocates as diverse as Jimmy Carter, Bill Richardson and, of course, Santa Claus himself. (I mean, how many years can the whole darn Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) be on the ‘Naughty List’ because a few lazy, backward-looking people don’t want to use a fire fighting device that has been in common usage across the globe for well over 100 years, for Pete’s sake?)

“Well, given the decidedly irrational and quite stunning opposition to and hatred for an inanimate object (the lowly fire hydrant!), and the very fact that a vast majority of the area laggards now agree that using the darn things in case of an emergency is suddenly a good idea, especially since the tax payers forked over more than $1,000,000 for the things a few short years ago, well, this is surely one of the biggest peace break-thrus we have seen since the end of WWII or whatever!!” said Sven Norseberg, a rosy-cheeked Nobel prize spokesperson from one of those crazy Scandinavian countries that now give away fancy prizes instead of what they have historically unleashed on the civilized world - sending a bunch of big, hairy, smelly, somewhat cranky Vikings to hack things up with battle axes while in search of plunder or whatever! “And Mr. Nobel, who, as we all know, invented dynamite that has sent millions of people to the great beyond thru war and botched train robberies (Editorial Note: Hey, don’t forget about how easy it is now to get rid of a stubborn tree stump! Way to go, Nobel dude! And what is more fun than blowing stuff up?) – anyway, Mr. Nobel is smiling in his grave right now over the new peace that has descended between the Town of Lamont’s fire hydrants on the one hand and a bunch of angry people who don’t see anything wrong with filling up a truck with water, even in winter, and carting it to a blazing inferno even though there is a fire hydrant right next to the blaze! Now, if the Arabs and Israelis would just follow Lamont’s example here, maybe we could spend less time down there in the doggone Middle Eastern desert where it gets to like 200 degrees or whatever and the only meat comes from a smelly goat! Oh yeah, and you know how we Scandinavians get sunburned really easily. Heck, five minutes in the sun and the wife calls me her precious ‘little lobster’ while pinching my scarlet cheeks or giving me a good thunk on the back with her quite sizable open hand!! I just hate that! It is all very undignified and quite unnecessary!! I don't see that blasted woman getting any "Peace Prize" anytime soon, at least not if I have any say in the matter! No sir! Not with that attitude and careless disregard for the pain and suffering of others!!” he fumed indignantly, thankfully not working himself up into one of those Viking ‘berserker’ rages or whatever those Vikings worked themselves up into when they terrorized the whole darn known world! (Well, if they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama for no obvious, easily discernible reason, they are obviously just passing the dern things out over there like candy or whatever! So what is wrong with giving one to that Viking dude's wife with the huge hands? Heck, why not? That just seems unfair somehow!)

Area Man Thinks ‘Feng Shui’ Is Name Of That Crazy Dictator Guy Who Runs ‘One Of Them Dern Korean Countries’ Over Yonder

In yet another chilling tombstone in the vast learning graveyard that is the modern American education system, (at least in these parts, anyway) an area man, Skeeter ‘Punch Bowl’ Bodine, 44, an area farmer/rancher, also known by some in the local area as some sort of ‘smarty pants’ and/or a ‘dadburn bookworm’ because he currently serves with distinction on an area church board and often reads the whole church bulletin front to back (when he ain't leafing thru some hunting or survivalist magazine!), threw caution to the wind and began delving into the relatively deep waters of international politics when he quite brazenly declared “Who the heck do you think you are, Mister Feng Shui, that dern dictator feller of ‘East Korea’ or something?” when nicely asked by a humble, unassuming town official to clean up some of the 30-odd junk cars in his yard and to keep his dogs, (a sad-looking bunch that appears to have some coyote or badger of something unnatural in their bloodline) under control so that they do not become a nuisance to the Town. “Heck, if I didn’t come from a long line of draft dodgers and others who could not legally join the military because of their quite shocking and extensive and varied criminal records and/or the fact that they were actually in ‘The Big House’ at the time that war started, my family would have fought in that there Korean war over there in the Middle East or whatever and we would not even have some dern dictator like Feng Shui to mess up the American hegemony (pronounced ‘hedge-ER-moan-EE’), for Pete’s sake!” he rambled incoherently yet with the passion of the hopelessly ignorant. “This is America! If we want to junk up the place, lower property values for our neighbors and allow our dogs to attack school children, then that is what this here Democracy allows us to do – unlike what that little fancy-pants Mr. Feng or Mr. Shui or whatever that little dictators dern name is would have us to do while marching in that there ‘Red Square’ or where ever that place is with all them funny looking buildings and old, serious looking guys with gray coats and really massive moustaches or whatever!” he concluded, mangling the already overburdened English language to a degree rarely achieved by sober, sane native English speakers in this or any other age.

Legal News: Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) Sued For Copyright Infringement By Producers Of ‘The Dukes Of Hazard’ TV Show

In a troubling case of intellectual property rights that is almost certain to land Lamont in front of the quite understandably disgusted US Supreme Court for the third time in as many years, (On 3 completely different cases, for Pete's sake! What are the chances?) the producers of the hit TV show ’The Dukes of Hazard’, (a mindless story about a bunch of ‘Good Old Boys”, never meaning no harm, who were, as is commonly understood, in trouble with the law from the day they were born or whatever) – anyway, this copyrighted material is subject to the intellectual property statutes of the United States and the producers feel that Lamont and the surrounding area have infringed upon those rights by shamelessly attempting to copy almost every aspect of the show in their normal, routine, civic discourse.

“Well, as hard as it is to believe, it would appear that one of the smallest towns in the State of Washington has taken an extraordinary and quite suspect step to mimic and infringe upon one of the most successful (and annoying!!!) hit TV shows of the 1970’s and 1980’s” said Melvin Finklestein, a lawyer for the TV producers. “Now, it would not be surprising to find, thru sheer statistical chance, a town with a small number of overlaps with that TV show - but Lamont seems, in our learned legal opinion, to have crossed that line in a very actionable way. I mean, the TV show had ‘Cooter’ and Lamont has at least 5 ‘Scooters’ (and 3 'Skeeters", for Pete's sake!! Oh, and who knows how many 'Bubbas' - almost half of which are women!!), the show had Boss Hogg and Lamont has that largely mean-spirited and incompetent guy who tries to run everything and belong to every conceivable organization and governmental entity even though he does not even live in the town and his ranch is going to hell in a hand basket! The list just goes on and on. But the kicker involved that small screen icon – Daisy Duke. I think that any reasonable jury would conclude that the sheer number of area women, regardless of age or whatever, who somehow cram themselves into ‘Daisy Duke shorts', (Oh, some things are just so wrong!) regardless of the weather, is a clear violation of our intellectual property rights! And I won’t even mention all of the local grease-covered throw-backs who, in some sad and pathetic attempt (although obviously successful in these parts!) to impress the local females want to drive around in brightly colored gas-guzzlers that went out of style well over 40 years ago. To say that is random chance just stretches the very fibers of credulity, for crying out loud! If the Lamont area, (mostly outside the town) wants to base their whole lives on some fictional TV show set in a mythical Hazard County, GA, that is their business, but we need to be compensated for it, that’s all!” he concluded while brushing off a piece of cow manure from his $400, hand-tooled Gucci loafers.

“Well, sure, the wife, (who he affectionately calls 'Daisy!) especially since she got on the shady side of 40 and went on that all carb diet like some sort of religious zealot or something – anyway, sure, she became overly fond of ‘Daisy Duke shorts’ in all weather conditions and regardless of the social occasion, but who is to say she got that idea from what just happens to be the best dern show in the history of the whole doggone world??” said Goober Festoon, wiping his hands on his grease-covered overalls that probably haven’t been washed since the show was thankfully taken off the air in the mid-1980's. "And yeah, having a yard full of junk cars is kind of ‘Hazard County’, but who in their right mind doesn’t feel rich and successful by having a bunch of rusted hulks in the front yard for the dogs to sleep under? How would the tetanus shot industry stay in business without people like us?” he mused thoughtfully, showing a surprising level of social sensitivity. (And why do bad dogs, bad kids and junk always seem to come together, anyway?) “And yeah, my sons do drive all around this country, giving the ‘Rebel Yell’ (and the middle finger when they ain't feeling too lazy and/or the Sheriff ain't about!) and throwing up gravel when they should be working but that is half the fun of being on welfare in the good old USA! That is what made this country great! This is just one of them lawyer tricks to try to squeeze a few shekels from the backbone of true Americans, if you ask me. And as for that whole Boss Hogg thing, a town like Lamont needs a strong-man in order to stop any 'big city' progress (like flush toilets and using fire hydrants in case of an emergency requiring a whole lot of water in a hurry!!) and allow the place to decline and decay faster than it normally would if left untended! So if he just so happens to put more than a few dollars in his own dadburn pocket by giving his uneducated wife a make-work job with every unfortunate organization he supposedly serves/destroys, what is wrong with that, for Pete’s sake?” he stammered with at least feigned outrage, given that the two men go to the area cow church together and you know how they are. “But now we got that new, smart, college-educated (pronounced ‘ed-U-cated’!!) mayor so it looks like the heady days of Hazard County in Eastern Washington might be coming to an end on their own" he said sadly. "So it don’t make no sense bothering that poor US Supreme Court none, if you ask me!” he concluded before unleashing a huge stream of tobacco juice at an unfortunately curious ground squirrel.

Area Leaders Jittery After Dramatic Increase In ‘Background Chatter’ Amongst Local Radical Bovine Extremist Groups

As if the 2nd smallest town in the State didn’t have enough to worry about with its citizenry’s general disregard for the benefits of fire hydrants, a truly shocking level of tooth loss and the sad fact that it does not even have a single dadburn store, security insiders who keep track of those sort of things raised the alarm after clandestine intelligence sources embedded in the fundamentalist herds confirmed a dramatic rise in “chatter” amongst bovine organizations long known to be committed to the violent overthrow of “The Great Satan” himself – the ranchers who have long exploited their very lives for some tawdry and seemingly unfair personal gain or whatever. “Well, we ain’t exactly sure what all them alert colors are supposed to be or nothing, but we feel that we got us a real tiger by the tail here, so what the heck – let’s just pick one – I always did like red – it reminds me of my brothers behind after my pappy got done with him when we was kids” chuckled Scooter 'Skid-King' Festoon, an area rancher and Director of the somewhat overrated Lamont FBI – the Farmer Bureau of Investigation. “Heck, cows may look dumb and all, but they are as crafty and conniving as all get out! And you go getting some outside cow raised in one of them countries over yonder that don't even speak no English and use all them curlicue letters or whatever, and the next thing you know the whole dern herd has got their tails all in a snit and they start demanding the abolition of fences, access to green pastures 5 times a day, where their heifers are denied the salt-lick and where they all clamor to be governed by something called “Bovine Law”! It’s just plain craziness, I tell you! And we ain’t two doggone shakes of a lambs tail away from the ultimate cow jihad tactic of them all, a full-fledged, earth-pounding, hoof-churning stampede, for Pete’s sake!” he sniveled annoyingly while dragging 8-10 cases of cheap beer into the storm cellar for his family to subsist off of should things go south in a hurry or whatever! “Heck, all we need now is some crazy preacher someplace burning their holy book or what not – the “Cow-ran” – oh, that is all we need right now!!! We’d have the mother of all stampedes and their ain’t no telling where the whole dern mess would end up at” he whined pathetically – wondering why he never decided to raise sheep like his really smart brother did.

(Editorial Note: Oh, please tell us he DID NOT just say that about the 'Cow-ran'!!! He DID NOT just go there, did he? (BTW, he lives on Elvis Presley Road outside of town - not within the Lamont limits itself! So go trample or head-butt or cow-patty something out there - not in Lamont proper. Thank you!) We at the Lamont Blog respect all belief systems, so as long as you taste darn good coming off the grill, we don’t care what your various little 4-legged beliefs are! It is shockingly backward-looking views like those put forth here by the Lamont FBI (just look at that hairdo! Whoa!!) that got this whole doggone world into the stinking mess it is now in! Come on, people! Can’t we all just get along? And please quit hogging the A-1 sauce down there, for Pete's sake!! Thank you!)

Area So-Called ‘Pathetic Losers’ And ‘Do-Nothings’ Saddened & Dismayed By All The Good Things Going On In State’s 2nd Smallest Town

In yet another stunning example of how crushing failure can be its own doggone reward, a cabal of area failures, disappointments, laggards and malcontents realized the source of their internal demons when it became obvious that all the good things going on in Lamont were the very well-spring of their crushing insecurities and nagging sense of self-loathing – to say nothing of their simmering anger at the whole stinking world, for crying out loud! “Well, I realized shortly after Lamont made the front page of the Spokane newspaper for all the improvements going on in the place that I began biting my nails down to the quick again – regardless of how much cow manure they had on them!” said Wilber Bodine, 56, an area pathetic loser and farmer/rancher who doesn't even live within the town limits of Lamont, for Pete’s sake. “Oh yeah, and then Lamont got an outrageously generous grant from Whitman County for a new library and one of them fancy flush toilets and I’ll be dadburned if I didn't start having night sweats and began whimpering for my mommy in the wee hours just about every dern night!” (Editorial Note: Too much 'mommy' is what got this whole problem started in the first place! I mean, come on!) said the proud 8th grade drop-out who really is pretty much of a total waste of human potential due to crushing laziness, a desire to see others fail and just a generally anti-progressive world view that somehow includes a hatred of flush toilets.

“Oh, but when they painted that doggone fire station after watching it decay for 60+ years, that was just the last dadburn straw! That is when me and my rancher buddies had to all team up together and draw the line in the dadburn sand since we are too scared to act individually (like real men will do! They let their women do the talking for them, and how! Talk about a clammer! Talk about 'babble' in a truly biblical sense!) outside the safe confines of a genuine (pronounced ‘gen-U-wine’!) mob (oftentimes drunken!) or whatever! Not on our watch, mister! No sir! What is next, giving our kids an actual education as opposed to spending all those limited tax dollars on sports so that all my kin can draw a salary driving bus and/or being a worthless chaperon and all! Sure, I am trying to live vicariously thru the sporting achievements of the modern youngsters since, of course, I was a pathetic loser when I was in school, too, but what in the heck is wrong with that? Plus, if you fill up those kid’s heads with all that fancy book learning and math and science and reading then the next thing you know they will be demanding flush toilets and libraries and access to the Internet and fire hydrant usage in case of a fire emergency and all of those other lures of the very devil himself! As my area cow church teaches dern near every week, anything that doesn’t somehow directly or indirectly benefit cows and thus the ranchers that own them is a complete waste of time and effort and is the very fruit of the devil’s tree!” he fumed with righteous indignation not seen since the heady days of the Spanish Inquisition! (Editorial Note: At least this crowd was so inattentive in school that they never learned about burning people at the stake for their differing beliefs! See, every cloud does have a silver lining, indeed. Thank you!)

“So yeah, me and my total loser friends, none of which live within Lamont itself, by the way, (go figure!) and who all seem to be in favor of absolutely nothing in general and against almost everything in particular are more than a little bent out of shape – and not just because the people who actually live within the town limits have seen thru our outrageous nonsense and shameless double-speak and no longer give us the time of day – let alone attend our so-called 'community events' where we quite graciously invite 'the little people' who don't even own cows over for a bland, starchy, gravy-covered meal so we can shamelessly bad-mouth the town leadership and municipal direction and try to convince the cow-less saps that our Luddite-like, destruction-oriented, decidedly inactive ways are best for them even though they quite obviously seem to be and in fact are designed to work against their own best interests, (like increasing property values! Whoa!) for crying out loud!! Enough is enough already! This town just needs to go back to rotting and decay like it should have been allowed to do in the first place! The darn town is making our rundown ranches look bad, dagnab it!! We just cannot let that stand! No sir!” he concluded while disgustedly kicking the toe of his manure-covered, multi-colored, high-heeled cowboy boot (with all that fancy stitching and flowery designs and what not that looks like it came from one of those countries that still allows bull fighting and where bribing the police is a more or less daily occurance!!) into the closest mole hole where some innocent mole, minding its own doggone business, for Pete's sake, now has to spend the next several hours pushing the dirt out of its hole and trying to vainly remove that manure smell that usually lingers after even the briefest of exposures to one of this underachieving rabble who seem to be against everything in the world (Including personal hygiene! Whoa!!!) except themselves and their petty, short-sighted, narcissistic little plans and schemes where someone always has to lose in order for them to feel like they have somehow won - however fleeting the victory may in fact be!

Shock: Area Rancher Caught Belting Out Madonna’s “Material Girl” While Working On Ancient Tractor In His Equally Ancient Barn

Regardless of whether we live in a ‘material world’ or not, the entire Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) took a hit to its already sagging, tenuous, teetering masculinity after Elmer “Skeeter” Snopes, 63, was observed enthusiastically singing some chick song from the 1980’s in his barn, late Tuesday. (Editorial Note: Remember, the GLMA is the area that is and always has been completely dominated by a determined and committed group of so-called ‘farm ladies’ (Whoa! What a generous application of the English language!) who, in fact, make the fearsome mythical Amazon warrior race of women look like a bunch of fragile Southern Belles twittering/blushing innocently at a formal tea party on some regal Louisiana plantation veranda while demurely and daintily sipping Mint Juleps with their delicate and well-manicured pinkie fingers sticking out or whatever while their mustachioed beaus with swords, overly tight pants and bad, twangy accents with way too many syllables swashbuckle about the place talking about ‘getting them dang Yankees’ and droning on about ‘State’s Rights’ and Robert E. Lee or some such thing!!)

“Well, there I was, looking to borrow some axle grease or whatever from the Snopes’ place when I heard this loud, high pitched noise emanating from the general direction of the barn” said Gomer Festoon, 43, and area farmer/rancher. “Anyway, as I inched my way forward and managed to peek inside the open barn door, I dang near had to claw my own dadburn eyes out with the horror of it all! There was Elmer, wrench in hand like some sort of fancy microphone or whatever, shamelessly shaking the lower half of his filthy overalls like a honey bee and belting out the whole dern song to beat all I ever seen! Oh, it was horrid! I know farmers and ranchers in these parts are greedy and materialistic to the extreme, but that don’t mean we have to go changing our genders to get even more of the filthy lucre, now does it? Heck, that is why we married all those loud-mouthed, gum-smacking, mannish women in the first place - so that they could be the actual men in the relationship to save us the trouble and bother - but we don't have to go becoming the doggone women ourselves, now do we? That just seems a step too far for me somehow!” said the obviously distressed yet disturbingly misogynistic Rancher Festoon who now vows to only shamelessly mooch petroleum products from ‘Old Man Bodine’ in the future. “Sure, there was that time the wife caught me singing “I am woman, hear me roar!!” at the top of my lungs out by the cattle shoot, (while she was bench-pressing a car axle just to see if she could!) but I wasn’t doing none of that ridiculous hip swaying and booty shaking – and I for dern sure didn’t have no fake microphone in my hand, neither! And Elmer even seemed to know all the doggone words to that 'Material Girl' thing, for Pete’s sake!! He didn't have to fake none of the words at all!!! Oh, it was just so wrong! What is this country coming to, anyway?” he concluded with a genuine shudder of societal disgust!

Fluke: Entire Lamont Marching Band Independently Opts To Play The "Dinner Bell” For 2011-2012 Marching Band Season

In yet another one of those mind-numbing things that can only happen in a place like Lamont, the entire membership of the obscure yet somewhat under-appreciated “Lamont Marching Band”, (known locally as “The Famished Farmers”) in an interesting attempt at country originality as well as an effort to match their natural, inherent, obviously limited musical talents with the appropriate instrument difficulty level (or lack there of!), anyway, somehow they all ended up choosing the ever-handy yet somewhat cumbersome and spine-straining/knee-buckling brass “dinner bell” from their respective farms/ranches to express their musical aspirations in a marching band context. “Well, let’s just say that this does drastically cut down on the number of potential songs that they will have to learn for next year!” said Gomer Bodine, 56, a farmer/rancher and the Lamont area 'so-called' band leader. “Heck, beggars can’t be no doggone choosers, so it ain’t like I can go making them pick some dadburned instrument that one would expect in any normal, sane, potentially enjoyable, remotely musically oriented marching band or whatever! Given the quite shocking prevailing laziness of this area in general, I was just tickled pink that we even got three volunteers (warm bodies!) to step away from castrating cows and watching the wheat grow in the first place. And who don't love the low, woeful sound of a clattering dinner bell after a full day spent fixing some piece a machinery 30 years past its life expectancy and/or running down the town of Lamont for all of them fancy ‘pro-toilet’, big city ways that seem to be all the rage now-a-days? (More than one clanging, tuneless dinner bell will be even that much more of a special treat to the listening audience!) Sure, we will sound like a marching train wreck and all, but this is America, doggone it, and if them local artsy-fartsy types want to give vent to their somewhat twisted/stunted musical muse via a 250-odd pound, solid brass dinner bell and march around the place with it, then who am I to throw a wet blanket on their dreams, anyway? Our dadburned Founding Fathers fought and died for our right to be socially, culturally and musically inappropriate, and I for one ain't going to soil that memory none! This is America! If you don't like it, move to California or Seattle or one of them places back East with all them sinister huddled masses of foreigners doing whatever sinister huddled masses of foreigners do or whatever! (With all them sinister foreign accents that no sane man can hardly understand in the first place! And what is with all that hand waving and double cheek kissing?)” concluded the righteously indignant Gomer, wiping away a patriotic tear while spitting an impressive stream of tobacco juice on an unfortunate passing sage bug.

Lamont Enthusiastically Celebrates William Shakespeare’s “Ides of March” By Collectively Stabbing A Friend In The Back

The Town of Lamont, a majority of which thinks William Shakespeare is some kid named Bill who is shaking a stick with a sharp point on the end of it or whatever, jumped on the ‘literature’ bandwagon when they learned that March 15th, also known as the ‘Ides of March’, was the day way back when when that guy that the ‘Orange Julius’ in the mall was named after got stabbed by some guy with a really sophisticated name – Brutus or something like that, (Compared to Lamont’s most common name ‘Bubba’, Brutus is downright regal sounding!) and decided that would be a culturally adept thing to do to throw off the stigma of being societal and literary laggards or whatever and to imitate that part where Caesar’s friend slips a hay bale knife into his back while they are just talking about the merits of cows or simply shooting the breeze on how bad the town of Lamont is without the hapless, fumbling farmers/ranchers running the place even though the grasping, power-hungry, under-achievers don't even live within the actual town limits and somehow forgetting that that same group already goofed up the doggone situation to an almost unbelievable degree when they did, in fact, run things (so to speak!) just a few short years ago or whatnot. (How did so many of these people end up in such a little place like Lamont? Sheesh!)

“Well, who would have thunk that all them fancy words would represent such fun and interesting things?” said Skeeter Bodine, 56, an area farmer/rancher. “Heck, now that I know that all that fancy book learning can be that much fun, I might actually break down and read one of the dern things before I die. (yeah, right!) And who would have guessed that some guy with a sissy little moustache would be able to capture the very essence of modern life?” he said with a genuine look of amazement. “There ain’t nothing more fun in the world than brazenly betraying a friend or loved one, and if all them brainy books are chocked full of that sort of devilish entertainment, then maybe I need to rethink my insane yet passionate opposition to that fancy new library Lamont is putting in with all that unnecessary indoor plumbing and all that other shameful wastefulness like heat and running water you don't have to pump by hand, I guess!” he concluded thoughtfully while picking at his few remaining teeth with a decidedly disturbingly discolored thumbnail.

(Editorial Note: Come to think of it, the expression "Et tu, Bubber" (how Bubba is pronounced locally) does have sort of a nice ring to it. Ain't it funny how timeless some things are?)

Entire Town Boycotts Yogurt After Learning That It Is Somehow Mysteriously Made With “Culture”

The humble and lowly Town of Lamont, known in farm/ranch circles as the “Pull My Finger” capitol of the Palouse, once again took a bold, brave, some might say ‘devil-may-care’ stance against modernity when word leaked out that the smooth, creamy, satisfying, calcium-rich dairy staple, yogurt, was in fact laced with what all pretty much agree to be the town’s ultimate nemesis – that scourge of small town America across all of – well - America – some kind of doggone ‘culture’ or whatever. “Ah, heck! Just what in tarnation can a feller trust now-a-days?” bemoaned Chester Festoon, 56, an area farmer/rancher! “There I was, getting ready to dip one of my freshly opened BBQ pork rinds into a cool, smooth, sweet, fruity container of strawberry yogurt when out of nowhere the wife mockingly shouts “Yo, Chester, you know that that dern yogurt is made with 'culture', don’t ya”? (she even did that 'finger quotation' thing for added emphasis and profound humiliation effect!) Oh, as if it is not bad enough being married to some loud-mouthed gossip who ain’t used a dadburned vacuum since 1973 and who spends all her time running down the Town of Lamont with her battle axe, mannish, troll-like friends, but for her to go running off ruining my favorite delicious snack treat combination – well, that is just plain cruel and mean-spirited!” he whined/snivelled indignantly. “Heck, I was watching the highlight tape of Lamont’s ‘Pull My Finger – 2006’ competition where that Jed Festoon and old rascal Scooter Bodine, both only sporting one arm as you know, well, them dern fellers walked up to each other, just as cool as you please, then they each held out their one remaining hand and said, simultaneously (That means 'at the same time'!) “Pull My Finger”… Oh, talk about irony! Talk about suspense! Talk about a battle royale of wills to see who would flinch and pull first! The tension was overwhelming! (he gasped!) The human experience doesn't get any more stark and intense than that, let me tell you! Anyway, of course it was at that exact doggone second that the ever faithful wife, never one for feminine niceties, chose to rain on my pork rind parade! Darn that woman! I mean, I am as against 'culture' as much as the next true-blue, long-time Lamontazoid, because as we all know with it comes all them 'big city repercussions' and all, but that don't mean you have to go running around ruining a man's snack-time pleasures, for Pete's sake! Maybe she should spend all her time out running down the town with her haggish friends, after all! She sure enough vexes me plenty when she is underfoot at home, always looking for ways to emasculate a man, dagnab it!" he fumed! (Editorial Note: as the one-armed Mr. Festoon and Mr. Bodine proves, drinking several 12-packs and driving a tractor like it was the Indy 500 is not a very good idea! Tractor wisely, people! I mean, come on! It ain't like the cows won't wait for a spell!!)

Former Mayor’s Hair Returns From Grave To Terrorize Hapless Town!!

The Town of Lamont, long accustomed to hideous outrages that other real, normal, fully-functioning towns shudder at the very thought of, was once again catapulted to the very brink of madness after nightmarish reports began to trickle in that Harlan Snopes’ hair, the hair of the town’s first farmer/rancher mayor, somehow managed to wriggle from the cold, cruel grave to vex the town yet again. This hair, if one can stretch the very language to accommodate such an unholy abomination, seems to be the combination of the horrifyingly nightmarish elements of what appears to be some sort of primitive ‘man-perm’ and some totally creepy sort of oil/gel thing on the back or whatever, more or less like combining the unnatural strength and ugliness of Frankenstein with the slashing fangs/claws of a canine-inspired werewolf with a hankering for human flesh!

“Oh, now that is just so dadburn wrong!” screeched Jethro Festoon, 56, an area farmer/rancher. “Like it ain’t bad enough waking up to another day of crushing failure and having to glance over at that slumbering hulk that, unfortunately, belongs to the wife, but now my very life itself is one long waking nightmare filled with dread and loathing at the thought of being psychologically destroyed by some unnatural, undead, unmanly hairdo that we long ago thought was consigned to the wicked, sour, poisoned earth that spawned it? Heck, we have had 3 stampedes already this week! Them cows just get one glimpse of that – well, whatever it is, bobbing behind a fence so only the hair is visible and the poor things just panic - like only a cow can panic - and there ain’t a force in this world that can stop them from reducing every fence for miles around into twisted hulks of tangled metal and/or reducing the wooden gates to matchsticks with their slashing, fear-inspired hooves! Why won’t that man’s hair just let us move on with our largely meaningless lives where all we ever talk about are cattle prices, varying rainfall amounts, why trucking water to a fire is better than using an existing, close-at-hand hydrant with 82 psi of pressure fed from a tank with over 100,000 gallons of water (and a refresh rate of over 200 gallons per minute! Thank you Century West!) and how much we hate the Town of Lamont and just wish it would be allowed to be reduced to rubble like it should be so it don't make our ranches look so dang bad in comparison?” he panted in a low whisper while clutching his crucifix and spitting three times to ward off the hellish (not to mention hairish!) apparition! “I just cannot help but think that all them outsiders with all their fancy pro-toilet, pro-painting, pro-pavement/sidewalk, pro-library ways have summoned this unholy apparition on us as some sort of cosmic retribution for our profoundly un-American, shockingly ignorant, decidedly anti-modern, ‘pro-angry-drunken-mob’ ways!” he stammered disgustedly. “Darn them and their stupid big city ways!! When will this madness ever cease?” he whined pathetically.

Totally Awesome Rep. Susan Fagan Somehow Gets Even More Doggone Awesome (Despite Having Lamont In Her District!!)

District 9 State Representative Susan Fagan, already one of the sharpest and most capable governmental ‘wunderkinds’ to come down the pike since Honest Abe and that Thomas Jefferson feller did whatever it was that they did that seemed to impress everyone so much, is breaking her own seemingly insurmountable records for awesomeness, even though she knows deep down that her otherwise sharp and hard working District must carry the ‘Mark of Cain’ in the form of Lamont, a hapless, wayward, backward-looking, some might say ‘neanderthal-ish’ hamlet that could not even manage to put in a public restroom after 100 years (and doesn't even have a store now!) because of a small cabal of Luddite-like farmers/ranchers who view such things as unnecessary extravagances and somehow unseemly!! Rep. Fagan, a person with a steel spine yet a heart of gold, who proved beyond any reasonable doubt her mettle for national leadership after she spent any number of hours at the seemingly interminable Lamont 100 Year Festival (that was boycotted by many of these same ‘toilet-averse’ farmers/ranchers who say they love the Town so much but want to see it reduced to rubble thru neglect and inattention!! Oh, brother!), just recently gave one of those citizen ‘Town Hall’ things where people could call in or listen on the phone (How did she do that? Whoa! Is she Bill Gates or something, too!!) and her clear vision, almost uncanny common sense, poise and solid American values left everyone pretty much gob-smacked and begging for her to become queen or President or Governor or whatever! (For the sake of full disclosure, the Lamont Blog, the news source of record in far, far, far Northwest Whitman County endorsed Rep. Fagan for Governor sometime back, although shockingly enough she failed to heed this powerful endorsement and has since worked wonders for District 9 in Olympia instead).

“Well, I listened to the Susan Fagan Town Hall meeting and heard her stance on the issues facing our region and nation, and to be honest, I have half a mind to get off the Lamont Council and devote my energies to her” said a Lamont councilman of 15 years. “I have been around a lot of years, and individuals like Susan Fagan are about as rare in these parts as hen’s teeth. If we had more people like her in positions of authority this country would not be in the mess it is in!” he gushed! “Oh, and being a former military man, her grit and determination, as demonstrated by her stalwart attendance at our 100 year festival, certainly qualifies her for Commander and Chief, if you ask me! If she can withstand that, she can certainly take on our national enemies, both foreign and domestic!” he mused proudly while raising his hand in a smart salute.

(Editorial Note: We at the Lamont Blog would like to apologize to Rep. Fagan, R. – Pullman, for Lamont being the fly in her district ointment and would encourage her to remain strong and resolute, in spite of the fact that we tend to tug down her averages (the good ones) in almost every category imaginable. Thank you!)

Outraged United Nations Security Council Convenes Emergency Special Session To Condemn Lamont For Gratuitous Application Of “The Rump Shaker”

In a rare special session of the vastly overrated UN Security Council, you know, that group of busybodies who think they can boss everyone around even though they don’t even live there – anyway, these people called some fancy special meeting or whatever to condemn the 2nd smallest town in the Great State of Washington for what appears to be the latest in a long line of ‘crimes against humanity’ (to say nothing of decency and good taste, for Pete’s sake!!) – the largely unsettling so-called ‘dance move’ – known politely as “The Rump Shaker”. “Mon Dieu, this is an outrage that must be stopped this very instant, sacre’ bleu!” said some high-strung French guy named Pierre or Jacque or Fifi or whatever! (You know how sensitive and flighty those French are! Oh, where are the Germans with their hob-nailed ‘Jack-boots’ when you actually need them? And how did France, a country best known for its rich sauces and flaky pastries, that actually lost WWII in about 30 minutes, ever get on the Security Council, anyway? Talk about grading on a curve! If getting your butt kicked in war (in record time!) was a prerequisite for global leadership, then why is Italy not on there? Come on!) Anyway! “Well, after the horrors of the 20th Century, the global community cannot just sit by as nightmares beyond imagination are perpetrated against innocent civilians! My country knows better than most the outrages of unchecked beastliness and stomach churning human insensitivity!” said the Russian guy who sounds like he might have spent a little too much time at the vodka fountain! “This is the year 2011 – and outrages of this type should be relegated to the dustbin of history” he rambled on like people tend to do after a few too many! “Blimey!! This just won’t do!" said the over-starched English Security Council dude, mangling the English language like only the British can do, for crying out loud! "Now, sure, things like the disgusting ‘Rump Shaker” were okay when the sun never set on the British Empire and a bloke needed to blow off a little steam in Calcutta or Zanzibar or whatever, but since we cannot even seem to properly conquer Northern Ireland nowadays, well, it is just better to put an end to these outrages once and for all!” he concluded with the trademark 'stiff upper lip'. The American and Chinese representatives could not be reached for comment because they were off scheming someplace in order to shamelessly stab Taiwan in the back or whatever so China does not call in the US national debt!

When asked for comment, the new, cool, smart, savvy Lamont Mayor (who actually knows what he is doing!), Michael Breckenridge, who ran for office on an ‘anti-Rump Shaker’ platform, sympathized with the ultimate goal of the UN Security Council, but stressed that they do not have jurisdiction in the Palouse, even though that is a French word, and he politely suggested that they butt out and go focus on Somalia or Yugoslavia or even Mongolia or whatever and mind their own dadburn business! (Amen!!! Preach on, brother! Dang, it is about time we had a mayor who has his head screwed on straight!)

Century West Engineering Voted Best Engineering Firm In The Whole Dadburn Galaxy For 5th Straight Year!

Century West Engineering, a national brain trust nestled in the Pacific Northwest but whose reach extends quite a bit further, was recognized once again for their technical excellence, innovative solution orientation, almost supernatural ability to remain on schedule and within budget as well as a quite excellent ability to work with entities and unusual life forms and cultures from other worlds, regardless of how annoying and/or quirky they can be. Century West, under the astute leadership of a certain Dennis Fuller, has multiple branch offices, namely in the Portland area and Spokane, is well known for bringing engineering excellence into even the most backward and primitive of settings and has a quite startling track record of providing almost unbelievable infrastructure improvements into inhospitable environments long deemed inaccessible or culturally prohibitive by civil engineering and construction experts on any number of planets.

“Well, I remember that time we had to put in those new roads on that planet in the Orion Cluster that had 8 times the gravity of earth! Wow, that was a memorable one! Of course, everyone at Century West knows how to use a scientific calculator, so our load and stress calculations were just a matter of conversion, so it was not really that hard” said an unnamed Century West engineer, who shuns the spotlight like they all seem to do for some reason. “Oh, but a really difficult one was when we got the assignment to go into Lamont, WA and pave over half the town!" he winced! "Talk about bizarre! Talk about a hostile, alien world! Yikes! I did not handle that assignment as lead engineer thank goodness, Bryan Hicks did, but just hearing stories as told by their mayor about the natives and their outrageously unreasonable demands and how the local life forms wanted to use the heavy equipment to do their daily chores was really disturbing and kept me up for many a night, let me tell you! Oh, that was pretty much a worst case scenario, but we managed to get it done on time and under budget! They never told us about towns like Lamont in engineering school, thank goodness. Just imagine the drop out rate! We would have all switched to an easy major like marketing or whatever! Come to think of it, finishing that assignment on time and on budget with one's sanity intact was pretty much a dadburned miracle and in fact went a long way to strengthen my faith in the Almighty Himself!” he said thankfully while gazing lovingly at the Heavens!

“Oh yeah, and I remember that time we were tasked with pumping boiling sulfur water to the surface for the inhabitants on that little planet in the Crab Nebula! Sheesh! The atmosphere was 79% ammonia and the average surface temperature was 216 C – but with a little bit of planning and the proper protective gear we managed to bring the inhabitants of that purple world the life-sustaining refreshment that they so sorely needed” he said proudly. “Oh, but I remember that time there was that little town in the Scablands, Lamont again, I think it was, oh, now that was a difficult one. Yes, very disturbing! They had just about the worst water imaginable and the town was about to be condemned, but as if having to work with the townfolk and that so-called mayor was not bad enough, yet it was -10 F too, and having all those citizens come tumbling out in their tattered bathrobes making insane, scatological demands – oh, it was simply horrid! Thankfully the expression “what does not kill us makes us stronger” is in fact true! Whew, I would not want to go thru that one again! Talk about a hostile world! Talk about cantankerous humanoids! Talk about a clash of cultures! Yikes!! (Hey, don't forget all that morning breath or that woman who came out every day in 'short-shorts!!)” he shuddered!

“Oh, and there was that time that we were tasked with developing and building a data repository on that distant planet that was completely covered in water. Somehow those alien entities had struck on the idea that all their records should be stored on a substance very similar to what we know on earth as crepe paper, so making sure no water ever got near the stuff was very challenging. Plus, the whole dern planet was chocked full of these shark-like things that could see in the dark and quite quickly developed a hankering for the taste of human flesh! Whoa, talk about an engineering balancing act! But that was nothing compared to that time the fine Whitman County Commissioners gave Lamont a quite staggeringly generous grant for $52,000 to build a new library! Oh, working with that unique life form was the worst of all! On that project we had to assist them in putting in water, septic and the building itself! Oh, that challenged the cumulative social, cultural, psychological, anthropological and engineering expertise of our entire organization! It was so bad that Dennis Fuller, a man who obviously has a big soft spot for the dysfunctional underdog, had to step in to take command! Talk about leading from the front! Talk about taking the hits for the team! Talk about carrying the lumber and bearing the load! Oh, that Dennis is the best boss ever! He is never one to pass off the difficult, seemingly hopeless assignments to his quite capable staff, that is for sure!” he said frankly without even a hint of brown-nosing.

Luckless Town Of Lamont Once Again Victimized By Shocking Ignorance Of Minor Segment Of Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA)

The town of Lamont, a wayward hamlet cast adrift in some hellish nightmare known as 'The Scablands', is currently in the latest in a long line of ‘dust-ups’ with the area (non-resident) farmers/ranchers and their troubling aversion to flush toilets, particularly within the town of Lamont itself. Lamont, a humble little town that the area farmers/ranchers who have supervised Lamont’s decline for 60+ years without lifting a finger and who seem hell-bent on destroying just so their ramshackle ranches don't look bad in comparison, anyway - the investigative reporting unit at the Lamont Blog, thru tireless efforts and gallons of that largely worthless Folgers Coffee, has uncovered the supposed root cause of the farmer/rancher apprehension to basic amenities that other towns have taken for granted for almost 100 years – like the seemingly basic flush toilet itself. On the surface, the very idea that a group of farmers/ranchers in this day and age (who do not even live within the town limits, for Pete's sake!) would be so violently opposed to such things as flush toilets, libraries, planning grants for new fire stations, fire hydrants and the like seems impossible – but this is Lamont with its unique gumbo of a shocking farmer/rancher sense of entitlement, a well-below average overall education level (for decades the farmers/ranchers ran the school board! Go figure!) as well as what many believe to be a Satan-inspired desire to befriend and support local criminals and to gossip and undermine and destroy progress at every opportunity (Judge a tree by its fruit, as the Good Book says multiple times!) Anyway!

Thru exhaustive (and exhausting!) journalism and in-depth analysis of the facts, the Lamont Blog has determined that the farmers/ranchers (Not all of them, folks! We have a few fine ones - like the ones who actually help the Town! We are simply referring to the noisy, thick-headed, destruction-oriented ones - you know - the ones who are against libraries and toilets and using fire hydrants with 82 psi and things like that!! They are pretty easy to pick out! Plus, they are the ones who tend to not smell very good sometimes, if you know what we mean), anyway, thru what can only be described as one profoundly sad set of educational shortcomings, these troublesome farmers/ranchers are supposedly not so much opposed to Lamont having a public ‘commode’, (or so they say!) but what they are opposed to is the town of Lamont having a public ‘Komodo’ (that is a big lizard, folks! A man-eater! From Indonesia or one of those places over there!) locked in a dark room in the new library where people could just stumble in upon the poor thing by accident or whatever. (Oh brother! See the types of primitive double-talk and excuse making we get around here from supposedly ‘upstanding citizens' who should know better, but have no natural restraints in their pursuit of control and power? Yikes!!) (See previous article on 'The Dumbest Son Inheriting The Ranch'. Thank you) “Well, this has all been one big misunderstanding, dadburn it!” said Wilber Snopes, an area farm/ranch spokesperson. “I got about 100 (pronounced ‘a-hunnert’) phone calls from irate farmers and ranchers across the state and the whole dadburn nation telling us to knock off our stupid, ignorant, foolish, luddite-like behaviors and stop being Medieval cretins who are dead set on destroying all the good things in Lamont. So, anyway, after I got all this loving support and solidarity from my ‘brothers of a different ranch mother’ I decided that we needed a cover story so that the GLMA farmers/ranchers could stop embarrassing farmers/ranchers the world over with all our obviously ignorant tom-foolery! That is when one of the local farm hands, some new feller not from these parts, was just trying to be helpful and came up with the 'Komodo dragon' idea as a cover story (this guy didn’t graduate from a GLMA school decades ago, thank goodness, when all this dadburn trouble started - so the man knew what an actual komodo dragon was! The Lamont school is quite excellent now, BTW, once we got the farmers/ranchers who sent all their kids to private schools or St. John off the doggone local school board! Why is there no law against being on a school board yet sending your kids to a different school? That seems very, very wrong somehow!) Anyway.

“It just don’t seem prudent to me to have the town go spending all that hard earned tax money on some big lizard thing or whatever – especially when many of us farmers and ranchers are used to spending that same money on 'make work' jobs for our wives or whatever so the money comes into our pockets eventually" he chuckled. "Plus, lizards like the warm weather, so just think of them heating bills and all! Oh yeah, and what are they going to feed the dern thing? So, see, we ain’t against no dadburned flush toilet, we are against some big, scary dragon thing that I ain’t never heard of before yesterday when all them real rancher fellers from other counties and states called me to yell at me to stop embarrassing ranchers the world over. (Guilt by association is indeed a tragic thing!) I told you we farmers/ranchers ain’t all that bad out here" he lied shamelessly, giving a very insincere wink! "If they would just let us destroy Lamont once and for all and praise us endlessly for doing it, then we would have no more problems with the town at all and we could all live in peace until we decided what else we wanted to reduce to rubble as some cosmic payback for our presumably miserable lives, that is” he concluded smugly with his usual circular logic and annoying lack of mental continuity and focus!