Planet Claire
As a journalist, it is my duty to investigate and report interesting stories that the public deserves to hear. I usually find these stories while wasting time on the Internet instead of writing the other, much less interesting stories that I am paid to write. It was during one of these searches that I found a story so original, so heroic, so inspiring that I can keep it a secret no longer. This story is about one man on a quest to save our nation—one man who has dedicated his life to spreading the truth. I’m talking about a weatherman from Idaho who blames the Japanese Mafia for Hurricane Katrina.
I know what you’re thinking: how and why did the Japanese Mafia cause a hurricane? Well, my friends, the answer is simple. According to former weatherman Scott Stevens, they used a Russian electromagnetic generator and they did it to avenge the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.
When the media heard Stevens’ well-thought-out and totally realistic opinion about Hurricane Katrina, reporters flooded him with interview requests. Stevens traveled around the country to spread his news. He was like a prophet. A crazy, Japanese-hating prophet with a degree in meteorology. Naturally, he appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, where he came off as one of the more rational guests. And yet America has not listened. People still talk about Hurricane Katrina as if it were not a weapon of mass destruction launched on us by our mortal enemies, the same ones who ship electronic devices and well-made cars to us year after year. When will the public learn to look past the release of heat from water vapor condensing at high altitudes and see the natural disaster for what it really is, a mob hit?
Stevens points to irregularly shaped clouds as proof that our weather has been created by man. “These patterns and odd geometric shapes seen in our skies, each and every day, are clear and present evidence that our weather has been stolen from us, only to be used by those whose designs for humanity are rarely in alignment with that of the common man,” he writes on his website, www.weatherwars.info. I know what he’s talking about. This one time, I was lying on my back in the grass, and I swear I saw a cloud shaped like a unicorn. “Wow, look, a unicorn,” I said to myself, when really what I should have said was, “The Mafia is at it again.”
So, what can Americans do in this hour of darkness? Stevens has a recommendation: “Protect your family’s wealth with precious metals as the cascading effects from this disaster and from poor government fiscal management, which have just begun to be felt worldwide.” Sure, I could melt down my grandmother’s jewelry if I wanted to, but then again, I could also correct the grammar in that sentence. But I have a better idea. In our time of need, Americans should turn to the things that comfort them the most—their family, friends, good food and, yes, music.
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This prescription brings me to another groundbreaking news story. Hilary Duff—who, as far as I can tell, has no ties to the Japanese Mafia—has released a greatest hits album. Most Wanted, an optimistic title if ever I’ve heard one, combines tracks from her two—count them, two—previous albums into one glorious disc. OK, so Duff technically has three albums, if you include her 2002 Christmas opus Santa Claus Lane, but for some reason it isn’t included on the greatest hits compilation.
I, for one, feel that a Hilary Duff greatest hits album is long overdue. For months now, I’ve been wondering how I can get “So Yesterday” on the same album as that “Pieces of Me” song. Oh, wait, that was by Ashlee Simpson. Well, you know what I mean. Hilary Duff has such an extensive discography, reflecting the breadth and depth of her musical abilities. Sometimes she sings pop, sometimes she sings pop-rock. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast. The woman is a genius. She’s like Beethoven, but with better hair.
I don’t know what Scott Stevens’ hair looks like, but my guess is that it’s not as shiny. Who has time to bother with nutritional hair-care products when you’re out to save America from the clutches of the Japanese Mafia and a Russian hurricane machine? Stevens is burdened by his knowledge, by the gravity of the truth that only he knows. So what if his shampoo isn’t pH-balanced just for him?
When the time comes for the Japanese Mafia to whisk me away in a tornado, I will be ready. I will surround myself with loved ones, melt my grandmother’s earrings into a life-sized sculpture of used chewing gum, pop Hilary Duff’s greatest hits into my portable CD player and brace for the worst, which might just turn out to be the sound coming through my headphones. But if the worst is worse—if, for example, I die—at least I’ll know that I have done my job, alerting the American people to this grave, unicorn-shaped threat. And that is comfort enough.