Grigovia severs ties

Israel's wanton shelling of civilian areas and its stated objective of bombing Gaza back into the Stone Age were cited as some of the reasons behind the Glorious Republic of Grigovia's (GROG) move to withdraw its diplomatic mission to that Middle Eastern nation. Additionally, Grigovia's legislative body issued a decree condemning the hostile acts perpetrated by the land-grabbing, toddler-bombing Israelis, asking kindly that they remove their ambassador and shutter their embassy on Embassy Row in beautiful downtown Grig. Regarding a potential loss of productivity resulting from these actions, all citizens we interviewed and every politician with whom we spoke agreed that belt-tightening and personal privation were preferable to hands stained with the blood of innocents. Many Grigovians are employed in the extraction and refinement of rare-earth-minerals, which are much sought-after by armed forces and weapons-technology companies around the globe.

The severing of ties extended beyond Grigovia's legislature and foreign ministry as scores of businesses throughout Grig's industrial belt canceled contracts or withdrew bids with Israeli companies involved in the latest bloodshed, with the Zionists' heavy-handed military actions against highly populated areas being given as the primary cause. The local organization Home for Orphans of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine (HOIOP), which maintains not only hospitals in the Gaza strip and the West Bank but also numerous full-service complexes across Grigovia has announced a drive to raise funds to provide newly homeless Gazans with food, shelter, and medical attention. (Persons interested in donating to HOIOP are asked to phone its national headquarters at 772 0198-233.)

While he was packing up his few belongings, Tharmol Cheuryind, Grigovia's (now) former ambassador to Israel, underlined the delicacy of the situation, blaming, in part, the Israeli news-media for heightening the state of alarm. “Over the last few weeks, I have been watching stations such as al-Jazeera and al-Aribiiya on satellite TV as well as local Israeli newscasts coming in on the airwaves. I am not surprised that the vast majority of Israelis support Operation Pillar of Defense; Hebrew-speaking newscasters have been hurling vitriol and abuse at the Palestinians for months now, casting them as sub-human and blaming them exclusively for the deterioration of the peace process, regardless of increased Israeli settlement activity.” (During the course of our interview, it was announced that the government of Egypt had arranged a cease-fire between Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces.) “My orders have not changed,” said Tharmol, zipping up his carry-on duffel bag and walking through the embassy one last time, turning off lights and setting the thermostat to away. “I am a student of history,” he said while waiting for a taxi to take him to Tel Aviv International Airport. “And, therefore, I know that peace deals around here never last. If I get a call on my satellite phone telling me to come back, I shall, but, until then, I am going home.”

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child takes things too far

While celebrating his 8th birthday party at a local park, Yusuf Henry D'Angelo once again took things a bit too far. Said the boy's father, Damion Xavier D'Angelo, aged 47, “Yes, Yusuf went over the line, as he seems to always do. One moment he and the other children are playing nicely in the creek, and the next, the boy is three stories up in a tree and cannot come down by himself.” While the birthday child was able, after many tears of shame and much coaxing from his mother, to climb under his own power back down to terra firma, sure enough, within a couple of minutes he had set fire to a pile of wet logs behind a nearby utility shed. “We do not know how he accomplished these things,” said Yusuf's mother, Georgina Hunt D'Angelo, aged 25. “He is a smart boy, and, normally, a good boy; his father and I watch him very closely in an effort to prevent just such occurrences, but, somehow, he manages to get away with stealing at least one police cruiser every week, and, just last Thursday, he hacked a Predator drone flying over Afghanistan and used it to rain death and hellfire onto a compound filled with bloodthirsty jihadists. How did he know where they lived, and how did he know, afterward, at which forward operating base to land the drone with such apparent skill? He even taxied the craft to its assigned berth. It may sound incredible but, here,” the woman said, pulling out her mobile phone and scrolling through the Received Calls list. “Here it is, right here, three calls from the Department of the United States Army. After the officer had calmed down and stopped shouting, he asked if I would permit my son – my eight-year-​old son – to join ROTC! Wow.” In the few minutes before the park closed and his birthday party ended, Yusuf tuned the park's only chainsaw, fixed a toddler's tricycle, made two new friends, and rerouted the town's commuter bus system to run more efficiently, all without appearing to have done a thing.

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