corporate shrine opens

After more than 130 years of planning and construction, the immortal quasi-entity known as the American Telephone and Telegraph company (AT&T) proudly opened its first officially sanctioned religious shrine. Half of the funds used to build the shrine came from a special federal tax credit granted in 1946 and renewed every years since then thanks to intensive lobbying efforts.

Nestled into a grove of lacebark elm and desert willow on the western edge of the corporation’s sprawling Dallas campus, the glass and steel structure was blessed by company monks in a three-day ceremony that ended 4 April 2017. To commemorate the government-sanctioned monopoly over communications that AT&T has enjoyed throughout most of its existence, and as an expression of thanks for the many favors and gifts they have received for allowing said monopoly to continue, all members of both the U.S. Congress and Senate unanimously declared 4 April a national holiday - Your World - Delivered © Day As Brought To You By AT&T. (The name is the holiday is subject to change according to the whim and fancy of said corporation’s marketing department.)

The shrine features kneeling cushions as well as benches for sitting. Its inner wooden walls are adorned with images of the company’s various logos, which it has changed over the years to signify not only its fantastic might but also its anti-free-market, artificial, un-American dominance over domestic and international channels of communication. Persons seeking to pray at the shrine and worship the holy corporate iconography should wear closed-toed shoes and dress appropriately - women in blouses and dresses that cover the ankle; men in button-down long-sleeved shirts and slacks. The faithful should arrive before the crack of dawn in order to be assured a spot at which to genuflect before the omniscient and immortal corporate entity that is AT&T.

[This article is satire; no part of it is intended to be taken as a factual representation of any corporation, entity, notion, party, person or persons, living, dead or immortal.]

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

leisurely summer, “satisfying”

Choosing to lounge around in his boxer-shorts instead of going about his wood-chopping, garden-tending, and home-maintenance chores, 29 year-old Maryland native Frederick Rillenhof said just this morning that his summer of abject, sun-soaked leisure was far more satisfying than performing any of the duties he admitted were necessary to keep him alive through the upcoming winter. “I hope to have a job by fall,” the home-owner said while trying to find a way to make his window-mounted air-conditioning unit produce more cool air. ”And I'm going to need one to pay for all this electricity I'm using, and for all the heating oil I'll have to buy in order to keep this damn place warm when it starts to snow.”

Sitting by an open, southward-facing screen door of his four-bedroom home, Frederick, who lives alone, said he enjoyed feeling the cold air stream past him, because it cooled him off a bit before escaping into the blast-furnace heat outside. “I just love that,” he said while poking at a brand-new, touch-screen-equipped tablet computer. “Feeling the breeze that the A-C is making, knowing that I have a fridge full of food just waiting for me to eat. I got a call from my credit card company this morning asking for payment on last month's bill, but what are they going to do, cut me off? I pay my mortgage with that platinum card, bitches.”

While poking around in the tall weeds behind the house (after being shooed outside to pee unless we, “Wanted to go all the way up to the third floor to use that bathroom, since all the other ones are clogged”), this news team discovered a discarded ax and a decrepit bow-saw, both of which were rusting away atop a woodsman's sawhorse. Next to these forgotten tools was a large mound of good lumber, the ends of which were however beginning to show signs of rot. When we asked him about the wood wasting away in the backyard, Mr. Rillenhof declared that he was too busy watching a marathon session of a popular reality-television series that focuses on crab-fishing off the coast of Alaska to get to sawing or splitting anytime soon, and that he would handle it once the weather turned a bit cooler. He declined to comment on his vegetable garden, however, which was in a sorry state, indeed.

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