Onion Soup

Everything Falling Apart, Reports Institute For Somehow Managing To Hold It All Together

May 14, 2008 | Issue 44•20

The Washington headquarters of the 75-year-old agency musters all its strength to barely hang in there.

WASHINGTON—Officials from the Institute for Somehow Managing to Hold It All Together warned that, despite their best efforts, everything appears to be falling completely apart and "getting way out of hand," according to a strongly worded report characterized by panic, frustration, and numerous typographical errors that was released to the American public Monday.

"The country today faces a number of pressing issues, including potential economic collapse, the continued threat of global warming, and the decaying national infrastructure," ISMHIAT chairman Kenneth Branowicz said during a press conference to announce the study's findings. "And we just can't keep it together anymore."

"Furthermore, we just found out that my hot water is being turned off," Branowicz added.

Enlarge Image

ISMHIAT, Quarterly Status Summaries

The report outlines a number of disturbing trends, such as a steadily weakening dollar, skyrocketing national debt, the car still being in the shop after three whole weeks, a polarized electorate that remains divided across ideological lines, and the fact that the wife is staying at her sister's and for all they know may not ever be coming back.

"In summary, we have no choice but to accept that managing these complex and varied crises may be untenable at this time," the report concludes. "We're in way over our heads here, people. Oh God. God. What are we going to do?"

The institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank formed in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his Depression-era For God's Sake, Somebody Do Something Initiative, has issued similarly dramatic warnings in the past. In 1953, ISMHIAT released the now-historic findings on how they had talked and talked until they were blue in the face but they'd had it with these teenagers today. And historians still cite its famous 1968 report, a rambling, semi-coherent study titled "The Hell If We Know," recommending the immediate nationwide throwing up of hands.

This latest warning, however, could be the most alarming and desperate to date.

"Among the new challenges America faces is a deteriorating public education system, a vast healthcare crisis, new and frightening bioethics quandaries related to the privatization of human genetics, and, of course, the whole fossil fuels thing," the 5,000-page study, which was due in November 2007, notes. "While much has been done to alleviate immediate effects, the situation has become OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE—I just spilled coffee all over my pants—wait, don't type that— and we're out of paper towels AGAIN—Gwen, don't put any of that last part in the report—why are you still typing?"

Some have criticized the report as being alarmist and exaggerated, urging that the nation should just cool out for a minute until the situation can resolve itself.

"While they have certainly generated plenty of attention, these findings represent an unnecessary overreaction, and should be met with restraint and calm," said James H. Walloch of the California Center for Not Worrying About Stuff So Much. "It is my opinion, as an expert in this field, that it's probably not that big a deal."

Walloch's agency is not the only one coming down hard on ISMHIAT. Others have accused the institute of shortsightedness and even gross negligence for failing to keep on top of such issues.

"The current state of world affairs is completely unacceptable," said Dr. Hyram Klemper, codirector of the Sitting Around and Expecting Others to Take Care of Everything Foundation, which has historically had a contentious relationship with ISMHIAT. "We rely on the institute to keep things together, yet, evidently, this bloated bureaucracy is incapable of fulfilling its mandate from the American people. Now I've had to cancel my Hawaiian golf vacation to return to Washington and address this issue."

Dr. Thomas Dyers, of the National Blame Allocation Council, echoed Klemper's statements, stating that if the ISMHIAT cannot handle its responsibilities, its duties should be turned over to another organization, such as the Federal Fall Guy Bureau, under the supervision of Ed Haversham, the national Scapegoat Czar.

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Nation's Slicked-Back-Hair Men Rally Against Negative Hollywood Portrayal

May 12, 2008 | Issue 44•20

Ray Swartz, a prominent slicked-back-hair man.

LOS ANGELES—Thousands of members of the slicked-back-hair community gathered in Hollywood Monday to protest the film industry's longtime trend of depicting men with slicked-back hair as untrustworthy, unlikeable antagonists.

"There have been 4,192 films in the past 10 years in which male characters with sleek or slicked-back hairstyles have been portrayed in a negative light," said Ray Swartz, chairman of the National Organization of Men with Slicked-Back Hair. "Even though men with this hairstyle comprise just 3 percent of the U.S. populace, they make up nearly 80 percent of all film and TV villains, bad guys, and just plain assholes. As a result, thousands of men who enjoy wetting their hair and then combing it straight back face a silent but pervasive form of discrimination every single day."

"I'm just a man with slicked-back hair," Swartz added. "Does that make me a sleazeball?"

According to statistics released by the organization, five out of every six characters with slicked-back hair are cast as the primary antagonist. Of this group, 29 percent are depicted as greedy and manipulative Wall Street sharks, 22 percent as cold, emotionless murderers, 19 percent as evil coaches or mentors, 12 percent as corrupt mafiosi, 8 percent as undead creatures who feast on human blood, and the remaining 10 percent fall into the general category of jerks/pricks/John Travolta.

More alarming, Swartz said, is that certain subsets of slicked-back-hair Americans endure even worse prejudices. He cited men with slicked-back hair who also talk with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths, wear blue button-down shirts with white collars, or place toothpicks behind their right ears as the most victimized.

"Just because I have heavily gelled, jet-black, slicked-back hair does not mean I can't lead a normal, productive life," Kettering, OH native Martin Sutulovich said. "I'm not consumed by an insatiable thirst for power, I know nothing about the high-pressure world of real-estate speculation, and I have a wife and kids whom I love very much. The last thing I want to do is murder them, cut them up into tiny pieces, bag them up, and put them out with the trash, but when strangers look at me, that's all they think."

A recent study conducted by Swartz's group indicates that Americans who slick back their hair usually experience typical development, have life spans equal to those without slicked-back hair, and are no more likely to stoically torture people with medical instruments than the average dry-haired citizen.

"You always see crooked lawyers and politicians with slicked-back hair in the movies, but when was the last time you saw a computer programmer with slicked-back hair, a farmer who built a magical baseball field in a cornfield with slicked-back hair, or a man who defused a bomb at the last possible second to save thousands of innocent lives with slicked-back hair?" Swartz said. "Never."

"The closest thing we've ever gotten to a hero is Steven Seagal or that Spanish neighbor guy on Sanford And Son," he added. "And Seagal's hair is pulled back into a ponytail, so he doesn't even really count."

Swartz also pointed out that even females who appear in films with slicked-back hair often end up transforming into aliens who have sex with people and then kill them.

"I have naturally oily hair. If I leave it dry, it ends up messy by the end of the day, so I slick it back," Doug Roessner of Brockton, MA said. "I sell insurance for a living, so how am I supposed to get my clients to trust me when they all think I'm some money-hungry scumbag? And every time I tell my bosses that I'll 'take care of' a problem, they immediately assume I mean murdering someone. It's pathetic."

"My son hasn't been the same around me since he watched D2: The Mighty Ducks last month," said slicked-back-hair man Mick Romanini, referencing the film in which coach Gordon Bombay slicks back his hair when consumed by fame, then wears it dry again upon realizing the error of his ways. "Is this what we want to teach our children about slicked-back hair?"

Added Romanini, "He should be able to do whatever he wants with his hair when he gets older and not worry that people are going to assume he's the kind of guy who would plot his best friend's death and then seduce the widow to get his hands on the insurance money."

In interviews, studio executives have countered the protests by citing a number of realistic and sympathetic characters with slicked-back hair, including James Bond, Superman, and Data from Star Trek.

But Swartz rejects such claims. After closer examination, he said, Bond's hair is slicked "more to the side than back," Data is not a human being, and Superman has a distinct curl of hair that falls on his forehead, which his group considers a different hairstyle altogether.

Hollywood is facing similar protests from groups such as the National Association of Maniacal Laughers, the American Mustache-Twirlers Coalition, and the Alliance of Gentlemen with Scars and Eye Patches.

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"Law & Order" Actor Arrested

Former Law & Order star Dennis Farina was arrested and charged with a felony after he took a loaded, unregistered handgun to an airport. What do you think?

Elizabeth Carter,
Systems Analyst
"Can't say I blame him. That Brookstone in Terminal One can get pretty dicey."

Lyle Greystoke,
Parachuting Instructor
"There's always one loose cannon in every fictitious television precinct."

Doug Napier,
Molecular Geneticist
"What's the big deal? Maybe he was just planning to shoot people on the plane."

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