One would think the range of a telemarketer’s reach would have a limit, but 336 Journal has received a report from the other side that dispels this notion, according to one irate spirit.

Most of us have received the notorious robocall regarding an extended warranty on our car. This scam has been around since 2007, and memes about it have been shared online in social media spaces since 2016. But, until recently, only living people have been targeted.

“These people are relentless,” the spirit (whom I contacted via Ouija board) tells me. “And now it seems they can reach you anywhere—even in Hell.”

His claim seems farfetched, and I say so, but he bangs his fists on the table with fury.

“I have friend—a demon who shall remain nameless because naming her will summon her to Earth—that is routinely interrupted by telemarketers while she’s torturing damned souls! This is a real problem for everyone.”

The spirit apologizes for his outburst.

“Look, I was a confused and angry spirit when I first crossed over. A real poltergeist. The kind that would knock books off shelves and shake beds. But, I’ve mellowed over the decades and I’ve finally accepted my demise. I just want to enjoy my afterlife without being dragged back into petty issues that plague the living.”

I ask the spirit if he even owned a car when he was alive. Judging by his appearance and clothing, I’d guess he expired sometime at the end of the 19th century.

“Oh yes, I had one of the earliest models built by Karl Benz,” he says, perking up with the memory. “I bought it with my life’s savings in the late 1800s.”

“Did you purchase an extended warranty?”

The spirit laughs bitterly and tells me there was no such thing in his day. And, besides, he says, “That car was a death trap!”

I ask if he died in his car.

“Are you kidding? I died of pneumonia, like almost everyone else in those days.”

With shelter-in-place and physical distancing measures for humans extended indefinitely around the world because of the Covid-19 pandemic, statues are celebrating the absence of their fleshy cousins in public places.

Imagine, if you will, an empty town square. A solitary mime stands, within this public space of your imagination, with an expression of unbearable sadness on their face—gesturing to a single teardrop drawn upon their white-painted cheek.

Waiting for a crowd of people that exists only in memory.

As people around the world observe draconian rules of social distancing, millions of starving street artists and live performers around the world are being denied access to those people that acknowledge their performances by awarding them with the crumpled bills and dirty coins in their pockets.

Inevitably, it falls upon forward thinking humanitarians to come up with creative solutions to mitigate the loss of income from their craft. To this, we must ask the question:

Should we enlist mimes, as essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, to fashion physical distancing barriers in the air to protect us from people that refuse to obey the invisible defensive perimeters around our bodies?

I submit an unequivocal yes; and these are the reasons why I think mimes can serve a useful function in the larger world outside our sheltered bubbles of social isolation:

Even though mimes are notoriously misunderstood attention seekers that actively try to draw a crowd, they are also masters of building invisible and impenetrable walls in the air that encourage distancing.

Also, mimes are low-risk as transmitters of viruses because they do not speak and, therefore, they do not emit virus-infused micro-droplets from their mouths.

Mimes are very affordable and will not burden tax paying citizens. Furthermore, they can survive on just a few coins tossed into their hats; all the food they need is created out of thin air, so they can subsist solely on coffee and applause. They also provide their own natural face masks.

These are just a handful of reasons why I think that failing to make use of this valuable resource is absolute folly.

For, as we all know—a mime is a terrible thing to waste.

When American President Donald Trump announced his ambitious plans for a Mars mission during his first term, my instincts as a journalist led me straight to the source—though this source was orbiting Earth in a spaceship. The Martian ambassador, a wiry figure with an otherworldly aura, answered my Skype call, looking both annoyed and flustered.

“We weren’t expecting you people to visit Mars for at least fifteen years,” they snapped, annoyance crackling through the connection like static. “We’re not ready.”

Beside the ambassador, stood a pilot and an anthropologist, both with expressions that could only be described as galactic exasperation.

“We can’t yet protect ourselves from your viruses,” the anthropologist chimed in, her voice carrying the weight of countless microbial concerns. “And we’re just learning about the effects of Martian viruses and microorganisms on human physiology.”

The pilot, apparently not one to miss a chance for a sarcastic jab, leaned forward. “We also haven’t received the funding your leader promised for the construction of his 200-storey luxury hotel in our capital city,” he said with a smirk.

“He’s joking,” the anthropologist cut in, rolling their eyes. “Earth people are presently much too xenophobic for a successful first contact. Also, we build our cities underground.”

The word “xenophobia” hung in the air and I couldn’t help but recall the many films that have showcased humanity’s fear of aliens and the unknown. In District 9, for instance, aliens are segregated and mistreated, a grim reflection of human prejudices. And then there is Arrival, a recent movie that shows the paranoia and mistrust that greet visitors from another world, echoing real-world anxieties. Even the classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial underscores how quickly fear can turn to hostility.

Curious about their intel, I ask the Martians if they had monitored the conversation Trump had with astronaut Peggy Whitson earlier this year while she was aboard the International Space Station.

“Actually, we heard about Trump’s plan while listening to NPR over the radio,” the ambassador replied. “My crew prepared a skit for the folks back home. Do you want to see it?”

I nodded, unable to resist the promise of extraterrestrial satire. The pilot’s skin began to ripple and shift, turning a familiar shade of orange as he morphed into a perfect doppelgänger of the current American president.

“Tell me, when are we gonna go to Mars?” he demanded, his parody an uncanny mix of Alec Baldwin’s Saturday Night Live impression and the real deal.

The anthropologist, now resembling Dr. Whitson, sighed dramatically. “You already approved a timeline for the mission to safely launch in 2033.”

“Well, we want to try and do it during my first term, so we’ll have to speed that up a little bit, okay?”

“But, what about the construction of your golf course on the sun?” she retorted.

“We’ll be doing that at night so nobody gets burned,” the pilot shot back, his face a study in deadpan seriousness.

As the two Martians shifted back to their natural forms, they high-sixed each other, laughter echoing through the ship. Their comedic timing was impeccable, in contrast to the absurd reality unfolding back on Earth.

Yet, beneath the humor, the real challenges and expenses of mounting a mission to Mars loomed large. NASA estimates that a manned mission to Mars would cost upwards of $100 billion. The technical hurdles are equally daunting: ensuring safe passage through deep space, developing habitats that can protect astronauts from cosmic radiation, and finding ways to produce food, water, and oxygen on the barren Martian landscape. Not to mention the psychological toll of a years-long mission in the claustrophobic confines of a spaceship.

The ambassador’s concerns weren’t just bureaucratic griping; they were grounded in the harsh realities of interplanetary exploration. Every step forward requires meticulous planning, technological innovation, and international cooperation—a far cry from the slapdash, spur-of-the-moment decisions that seem to characterize much of modern politics.

As our call ended, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this Martian skit, as humorous as it was, captured a deeper truth about humanity’s place in the cosmos.

We may dream of the stars, but we still have a lot of growing up to do before we’re ready to reach them.

When President Cheeto Benito, The Great White Dope of American nationalists, spoke at the United Nations this week, there was a moment when he turned to the African leaders in the room and said: “In Guinea and Nigeria, you fought a horrifying Ebola outbreak.”

True enough. Three and half years ago there was an Ebola epidemic that infected over 25,000 people and killed more than 10,000 in nine African countries. The official declaration of the epidemic came from Guinea in March of 2014 and Nigeria was one of the countries infected. The worst of the devastation was in Sierra Leone and Liberia—and the general consensus among Africans and African supporters abroad was that the response came too little and too late.

And then The Mango Mussolini continued his address to the African contingent with this line of faint praise: “Nambia’s health system is increasingly self-sufficient.” Wait. What?

Nambia?

Did he mean the uranium-rich country of Namibia, located just north of South Africa and circled by Botswana, Zambia, and Angola? If Trump meant to say Namibia, he was probably getting his intel about their health care system from UNICEF, which states that:

“The Namibian government has made significant efforts to address HIV and AIDS, malaria and communicable diseases. Official estimates put per capita health expenditure at $108 in 2010, with significant private and donor spending topping up public health expenditures.”

I’m trying to imagine the thoughts that must have swept through the mind of Hage Geingob, the president of Nambia—I mean, Namibia—as his African compatriots in the room glanced his way to gauge his reaction. Was he preparing himself for the inevitable spotlight that would fall on him and his country in the days following the latest gaffe by President Business?

Unless, maybe—oh, please let it be so—maybe there actually is a Nambia, a plucky little African nation in the universe next door, that has spilled into our consensus reality.

If so, I’ll bet they have great uranium flavored covfefe.

Ladies and gentlemen, buckle up because on January 20th, 2017, ATN (American Television Network) premiered the wildest reality TV show the world had ever seen. The genre? Reality TV, but not the kind with roses or dance-offs. No, this was the big league—Presidential Election Edition.

Picture this: a narcissistic bully with hair that could double as a corn husk and skin that screamed “orange marmalade” in every conceivable way. His name? Donald J. Trump. This man, an epitome of wealth and privilege, didn’t just enter the American election—he bought it. And just like that, he swaggered into the Oval Office, the ultimate ugly American reality TV star.

Reviews were in: Trump was a brash, aggressive vulgarian, a self-proclaimed ladies’ man who told sexist jokes and laughed the loudest. He was a walking caricature, a vain, wealthy, and utterly self-serving man. The Great White Dope of American nationalism, blissfully ignorant of the basics of governance. And oh, did the liberal elite have a field day! Colbert, Noah, Maher, Oliver—they all took turns skewering this neon-orange monstrosity, like a never-ending comedic roast.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. As Martin Luther King warned, “nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Trump embodied this warning to a T, a clear and present danger, convinced of his own non-existent brilliance. He was the King of Crass, anointed by a gleeful public, crowned with names like Crotch-Fondling Adolf Twitler and modern Groepenführer, all while parading his “pussy-grabbing” prowess like a peacock with a penchant for petty vulgarity.

And let’s not kid ourselves—we’re all complicit in this tragicomic horror show. The media, playing Dr. Frankenstein, endlessly regurgitated every fetid utterance from his mouth, while we, the public, acted as Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant, eagerly sharing and resharing the monstrosity across social media, under the guise of resistance.

Welcome to the Trumpocalypse, where reality TV and reality itself collided in a grotesque spectacle. We created this rancid meatloaf of a political figure, served it up as a man of the people, and now we’re all stuck with the leftovers.

But, how did we get here?

It was a surreal November in 2016 when the stars aligned in the most twisted constellation imaginable, launching Donald J. Trump to the peak of GOP glory. Four cosmic forces collided in a spectacular testament to the absurdity of the modern American political circus.

First, let’s talk about the puppet masters: the cable news networks. These for-profit juggernauts, perpetually starved for ratings, found their golden goose in Trump. Here was a walking, talking ratings bonanza, a professional wrestling villain wrapped in a business suit, delivering a masterclass in absurdity. He captivated the masses with his never-ending stream of chaos, a circus act so irresistible it glued eyeballs to screens and kept advertisers salivating.

Next, we’ve got the GOP, a party spoon-feeding its base a toxic stew of misinformation and broken promises. They stoked the fires of discontent, crafting a reality so detached from actual facts it would make George Orwell blush. What did they get for their trouble? A Frankenstein’s monster—a seething, irrational, cable-TV-addicted creature, ready to devour anything that smelled like the establishment.

Then there’s the economic landscape—a barren wasteland for many, despite the so-called recovery. The top 1% were dancing in their gilded fortresses, while vast swathes of the country remained marooned in the shadow of George W. Bush’s Great Recession. These forgotten souls, trapped in their forsaken zip codes, were simmering with fear and rage. And where did they turn? Back to their televisions, of course, waiting for a savior.

And finally, the pièce de résistance: Trump himself. This man proved to be a political savant, a maestro of the modern media age. His arrogance was only matched by his uncanny knack for turning spectacle into strategy. He harnessed his reality TV chops to craft a campaign less about policies and more about showmanship, surfing a tidal wave of free publicity all the way to the nomination.

I, like many, thought the Trump show would be a flash in the pan, a brief, bizarre interlude in American politics. Even Trump himself seemed to expect nothing more than an expanded brand. Well, he got that—and a whole lot more. The phenomenon didn’t burn out; it exploded, forever altering the landscape of American politics.

So, welcome to the new reality, folks. The circus isn’t just in town; it’s set up permanent residence in the White House. But let’s hold onto a shred of hope. This chapter, as bizarre and unsettling as it is, reminds us of the power we hold as citizens. Maybe, just maybe, this spectacle will serve as a wake-up call, prompting a return to reason, empathy, and genuine leadership.

The show’s not over yet, and the next season is ours to write.