Nadir of Western Civilization

[jeff w]

Nadir Of Western Civilization To Be Reached This Friday At 3:32 P.M. | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

I <3 the onion.

WASHINGTON—An international panel of leading anthropologists, cultural critics, biologists, and social theorists announced this week that Western civilization will reach its lowest conceivable point at 3:32 p.m. Friday.

"From the prehistoric Lascaux cave paintings to the stirring symphonies of Mozart to today's hot-dog eating competitions and action films with comical gerbils, culture has descended into a festering pool of mass ignorance," said Yale sociologist Paul Riordan, who has spent his career analyzing western civilization's fall into the depths of depravity. "If our calculations are correct, this complete erosion of all that is enlightened and unique will reach absolute rock bottom on the afternoon of Sept. 25, 2009."

Added Riordan, "It is scientifically impossible for civilization to sink any lower than it will this Friday."

The panel said the upcoming nadir will be precipitated by a string of smaller devastating events.

At 9 p.m. Wednesday the ABC sitcom Modern Family will premiere, marking the least-inspired creative endeavor ever attempted by modern man. This will reportedly be followed at 12:52 p.m. Thursday by the release of a new energy drink marketed exclusively to U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Experts predict that the penultimate catastrophe will occur at approximately 7:15 p.m. Thursday night, when the social networking tool Twitter will be used to communicate a series of ideas so banal they will instantaneously negate the three centuries of the Renaissance.

"The sciences, the arts, the humanities—all aspects of society as a whole will reach their respective low-points in just a matter of days," said anthropologist Robert Davidson, gesturing toward a nearby line graph illustrating western society's collapse. "We've been charting this cultural descent for generations now, from the advent of New Wave music, to the rise of scientific creationism, right through to the trampling death of several Wal-Mart greeters on the morning after Thanksgiving. Everything has been leading up to this Friday."

According to the panel, the final event will occur at 3:32 p.m., when a tourist, believing the impressive structure to be a giant mall, will enter Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, and, not finding what he is looking for, ask where "the damn Radio Shack is supposed to be."

The man, dressed in Crocs and sweatpants and determined by researchers to be the final catalyst in humanity's epic downfall, will then loudly expel gas.

"This horrible but inevitable day has been a long time coming," said Davidson, before picking up a black marker and, seemingly without thought or intent, drawing a long, thick phallus on his chart. "And by the looks of things, it's almost here."

Some analysts believe the coming cultural sinkhole—the most intellectually and spiritually degrading moment conceivable by science or philosophy—will signal the end of mankind's decay and lead to a steady upward climb. Still, they warned, the event itself could be catastrophically lowbrow.

"With each passing minute, we're getting closer to a second Dark Ages," said noted art critic Mark Lefevre, tearing out pages from his report, folding each into a paper airplane, and tossing decades of hard work around the room. "Unless something is done to protect what little sophistication and refinement we have left, Western society may soon regress to a point of no return. We need to act, and act fast."

"Come on," added the two-time MacArthur "genius grant" recipient, before stripping down to his undergarments and brandishing an automatic assault rifle. "Let's get 'er done!"

Despite the panel's findings, many are skeptical that humanity will reach its lowest depths on Friday, claiming the humiliations are likely to continue as ever-smaller terrier breeds begin to outsmart their owners, and disgraced former congressman Tom DeLay appears in the new season of Dancing With The Stars.

Most chillingly, many agreed, is that while Michael Crichton's death has been a positive step, Dan Brown remains very much alive.

"We're talking about a society in which the name Newton is now more often associated with a fig-filled dessert than the scientist who revolutionized modern thought," biologist Howard Thurston said. "The human mind is endlessly inventive, and our species will always find new ways to completely discredit and embarrass itself."

As of press time, boobs.

[CertInsaneC5]

You Said Boobs.

[Munch]

I knew this was gonna happen.

[Neutron]

Originally Posted by Munch

I knew this was gonna happen.

Yep.

[BuckyThreadkiller]

So are we on the upswing after this or do we plateau here until the next Renaissance?

When that comes will there be turkey legs and wenches in low cut blouses with tankards of ale?

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by BuckyThreadkiller

So are we on the upswing after this or do we plateau here until the next Renaissance?

When that comes will there be turkey legs and wenches in low cut blouses with tankards of ale?

We can only hope bucky.

[jeff w]

Congress Approves $500 Billion For Monument To Human Folly | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

WASHINGTON—In recognition of mankind's inherent propensity for tragically foolish decisions, Congress allocated nearly $500 billion Monday for the construction of a new national monument honoring human folly.

"From Hannibal's disastrous crossing of the Alps to Custer's humiliating defeat at Little Bighorn, human history has been plagued by senseless mistakes, and it is high time we built a memorial to honor that history," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said of the expensive and ill-advised monument. "My deepest hope is that future generations of Americans will one day look upon this pointless edifice and be filled with a sense of awe and wonder at mankind's utter lack of foresight."

"To think of all the ways our time and money could have been better spent," Pelosi continued. "I can imagine no more fitting tribute."

According to the bipartisan plan, the proposed monument will be built precariously over a Washington freeway overpass, and will require as many as 30 years of grueling labor to complete. As a representation of humanity's failure to learn from past mistakes, the project is being designed by the architecture firm of Ganz & Weiss, best known for their work on a series of dangerously constructed St. Louis public housing projects that were condemned in the late 1990s.
Enlarge Image Folly Map

"Our goal is to create a structure that, like the human race itself, is doomed from the outset and plagued by innate flaws that can never be corrected," Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) said of the monument, which he claimed would eventually sink into the federally protected wetlands that surround it. "Not only will it be an aesthetic disaster, but it will also require constant, expensive maintenance just to ensure that the whole foundation doesn't topple suddenly and kill hundreds of innocent people."

The lead architect on the project, Robert Wheeler, told reporters that the monument would be a stirring testament to more than 200,000 years of arrogance, idiocy, and waste. He also confirmed that no fewer than eight different blueprint designs would be clumsily patched together in order to preserve the spirit of indecision and gross incompetence with which mankind has approached the vast majority of its endeavors.

"The face of the building will be covered with recently excavated sections of the Titanic, as well as several faulty pressure valves from the Chernobyl power plant and hundreds of uranium-tipped shell casings from the first Gulf War," said Wheeler, whose design calls for the monument to be surrounded by dozens of oil derricks pumping night and day into bare dirt. "But the most exciting feature of the memorial, in my opinion, is the giant glowing orb at the top that will symbolize humanity's needless overuse of energy and will itself use a staggering 12 gigawatts of power per second."

According to sources, thousands of poorly paid migrant laborers will carry out construction on the monument, digging straight through underground power lines and gas mains in order to clear a space for the soon-to-be dilapidated foundation. In addition, officials from the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed Monday that the construction zone has already been designated as a highly toxic Superfund site, setting the entire project three months behind schedule.

"So far we've spent $40 billion and lost a total of 300 or so construction workers, and we haven't even put in a full day's work," said project manager Tom Matthiessen. "It's been a challenge, but knowing that we're doing this to commemorate the countless lives and resources squandered by human beings throughout history makes it all worthwhile."

Added Matthiessen, "At this rate, I'd say the whole project should be a total, top-to-bottom nightmare by late December."

Although a vast majority of legislators supported the $500 billion bill, a few dissenting voices claimed that the project is an improper use of congressional funds.

"While I am all for paying homage to mankind's tragic legacy of imprudence, surely there are more appropriate ways to do so than this," Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) said. "Why can't we simply give the money back to the taxpayers so they can waste it all on bad investments, botched plastic surgery, and misguided real estate deals? Wouldn't that be a more suitable way of recognizing the complete inanity of our pathetic existence?"

At press time, Congress, and all of humanity itself, was trapped in a self-perpetuating loop of failure that is expected to continue until the inevitable extinction of the human species.

[Zed16]