Democracy inaction
Local voters flocked to the malls on Election Day, and to the parks and to work and to bars and just about anywhere besides the polls, as Kentucky held primary voting for dozens of offices that were too much trouble for all but 20 percent of voters to think about. The low turnout — coming at a time when the NSA is spying on citizens and Washington wants to build a wall between Mexico and the United States — should help show Iraqis what democracy and freedom are all about. Among the election winners was a fellow who, like Yahoo! and Yum!, starts with a Y and ends with a “!,” and who will try to can Anne Northup in the fall. In other freedom news, Metro Corrections mistakenly released a fifth inmate in less than a year.
UPS with people
“Brown” describes not only the corporate identity of UPS but also the color of our giddy local officials’ underpants after the shipping giant announced a $1 billion expansion at Louisville International Airport (which, without UPS, would be known as Louisville Airport). The four-year growth plan will provide 5,000 relatively non-shitty new jobs and a $750-million boost to the area economy. The completed facility will handle 320,000 packages per hour, roughly doubling the record set by Paris Hilton in 2005.
BYO spork
In a bid to boost lunchtime sales, serial artery-hardener KFC launched “Famous Bowls,” big ol’ tubs of mashed potatoes and, weirdly, corn, and, of course, fried chicken, and, yes, gravy, and, because this is America, some kind of toxic cheese-like substance. With the completely straight face of, say, an actor playing a mullet-wearing Harvard symbologist, KFC marketing veep James O’Reilly said the 690-calorie, 31-fat-gram bowls of atherosclerosis are targeted at “heavy fast-food users.” To appeal to non-heavy fast-food users, the bowls are also available without the cheese, gravy, chicken and mashed potatoes, in handy cob form.
Gun control
The Frazier Historical Shootin’ and Stabbin’ Museum shot its old name full of lead and blasted itself a new moniker. The museum will henceforth be known as The Frazier International History Museum. By dropping “arms” from its name, the museum takes aim at attracting visitors who don’t cotton to all the kablammy-pow-pow-pow-stabbedy-stab quite so much. When asked if he anticipated complaints from visitors who paid to attend a history museum that is in fact a shrine to arms, museum director Ed Webb said, “Shhhhhhhh, be vewy, vewy quiet; I’m hunting visitows, uhuhuhuhuhuhuh.”
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