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home > literaria > Funny Papers Iowa Secedes from the Unionby Dowling Woods, futurian*Well, it’s a simple fact that in the year 2006, Iowa seceded from the Union, which was announced with much fanfare from the Iowa Capital Building steps, including the Lincoln High School Band playing “We’re From Iowa, Iowa, Best in all the Land” with a solo by Jeff Cohee, and with the words changed to say, “Best in All the WORLD.” But no one
noticed. The secession
of Iowa from the Union was not noticed much by the rest of the U.S.,
not to mention the world at large, mainly due to the fact that it
happened after the inadvertent explosion in outer space over Iowa
of a nuclear defense satellite left over from the Star Wars Extra-Environmental
Tactical Plan (SWEET-P). SWEET-P of course was to have as a secondary
effect the reduction of global warming, but instead the detonation
of the satellite caused a “gridout,” or meltdown of all
unshielded data lines in the US, and as U.S. President John Hagelin
said, U.S. data exchange capabilities were “blasted back to
28.8 modem speed.” Due to the
resultant media blackout, Iowa found it difficult to get recognition
for it’s secession efforts, despite such practical steps as
renaming the Iowa National Guard the National Iowa Guard, and requiring
passports of truck drivers crossing the border on Interstate 80.
Iowa had (accidentally, as it turns out) seceded from the Union
because of the ban on the sale of all meat products after the Porcine
Elephantiasis epidemic of 2004. The secession
effort seemed doomed from the start, and not only due to communications
challenges. Even the election of Al Gore as “Iowa President
for Life” backfired when Al suddenly signed on as the U.S.
ambassador for the Intergalactic Political Mission to Planet 83-B
in the Alpha Centauri region. Iowans were puzzled, since no one
was expected to survive the mission, and only the space travelers’
descendents would actually live to land on 83-B. “We think
he got a better offer,” said Acting Governor/President Clyde
Cleveland. Local wag Bob Truog of Vedic City, Iowa said “Well,
I guess Al CAN take it with him, but where will he spend it?,”
a joke that garnered Truog 13 minutes of fame on the CWNFC scale
(Clayton Williams National Fame Counter). But of course
all of that national exposure was later, since there was no interstate
communication during the entire Iowa secession period, due to the
Internet failure. The wipeout of broadband web connections was complete
for at least 10 days, and in that time people were forced to have
actual conversations with their spouse, for example, and even read
books at times. Many suffered significantly due to the lack of data
input, but most difficult of all was the lack of the International
First-Run Satellite Digital Movie Feed (IFRSDMF) due to the digital
breakdown. Old VCR’s
were selling for three and 4 thousand dollars each, and tapes of
the Little Mermaid were priced at $150. [Editors note: 150$ in 2006
is about $25 in 2002 dollars]. As it turned
out, the Iowa Secession was an artifact of the gridout, since the
secessionists were later discovered to have won on a miscount caused
by technical inadequacies in the gridout-damaged tally system. Even so, for
a few weeks, Iowans had fun imitating the famous rebel yell of Civil
War days. Training sessions were held in local city halls. Unfortunately
for Iowans, some secret recordings of these “Yell-ins”
were made, which, when circulated throughout the Southern U.S. were
replayed with great glee for several months, and statements such
as “they couldn’t yell their way out of a paper bag”
and “they sound like Old Yeller” were a few of the more
polite comments. Other news from the
future:
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