These are honest-to-goodness story ideas pitched to Clamor Magazine in 2005:

5) Real World 101: College President Makes Business and Life Skills a Top Priority

The president of High Point University makes [quote-unquote] “Life Skills” mandatory for future grads. His goal? To bridge the gap between [quote-unquote] “college” and [quote-unquote] “Corporate America” and set the stage for a new paradigm in Higher Education. Whether the class will answer such real world mysteries as why “college” needs quotation marks around it, while Higher Education can get by simply with capitalization, was not addressed in the story proposal.

4) Woodpecker Return Raises Worries for Land Owners

You may have heard that a wildlife enthusiast out kayaking in the swamps of Arkansas recently shot videotape footage of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, an extraordinarily rare bird thought to be extinct for over sixty years now. The large, showy species is nicknamed “The Lord God Bird,” supposedly after the reaction most people have when they first see one. I guess it’s fitting. The reaction of one conservative think tank when they heard of the woodpecker’s remarkable survival, which they wanted us to publish, was: “Lord God, this bird could land on somebody’s property and the Endangered Species Act would prevent them from developing it into a strip mall. The humanity!”

3) Raelians Support Cannabis Grandma

The Raelian Movement and its leader the Prophet RAEL offer their support to Britain’s “Cannabis Gran”—one Mrs. Tabram—who unapologetically eats marijuana five times a day, even under the threat of jail. While the Raelian philosophy asks its members not to use any drugs, RAEL declares: “No plants created by Elohim, that help us cure diseases, should be illegal.” Those that cause disease, like Poison Oak or something, should be wiped off the face of the fucking planet.

2) My Dog Buffy: She May Be a Bitch, But She’s No French Poodle

Consider this excerpt from an essay arguing that gayness is a choice: “I have a dog named Buffy and she is a girl dog. She goes out and she finds a boy dog and they fall in love and she has puppies. She knows she’s a girl dog and he knows he’s a boy dog. All anyone has to do is look down their pants to find out what God made them to be. If they can’t figure that out, they have less sense than my dog Buffy!” Okay, I admit it. Now I’m confused. Anyone else think it’s weird that Buffy wears pants? I figured she’d be wearing a dress for sure. And what God-fearing straight names their dog Buffy? This whole thing makes me want to ask questions and explore.

1) World Car-Free Day: Not a Day to Celebrate

Talk about burying the lede. The sub-subtitle to this submission was, “If You Think Life Without Cars is Easy, Remember the Big Easy.” More than simply bashing World Car-Free Day, the piece explains that “real cause” of the tragedy in New Orleans wasn’t government incompetence, racism, or even, apparently, the weather—rather, it was a shortage of automobiles. According to Sam Kazman, head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Automobility Project, “It was a lack of access to cars that led tens of thousands of people to remain in the city.” The fact that so many New Orleanians were more-than-willing to hop onto “alternative modes of transportation,” like buses and flat-bottomed fishing boats, when they were finally made available, was not addressed in the article. Neither was the possibility that the pollution caused by an overabundance of automobiles may have actually played a role in causing Hurricane Katrina.

-compiled by Arthur Stamoulis

This entry was posted on Friday, December 23rd, 2005 at 11:27 am by Jason Kucsma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.