The satire vortex, previously only considered theoretically possible, was triggered when the magazine hit newsstands this morning. Its cover depicts a summary of right-wing worries about the Obama family, including a militant Michelle Obama, Barack Obama in traditional Muslim garb, and a portrait of Osama bin Laden hanging over a burning American flag.

A satire vortex begins when the response to a piece of satire is humorless outrage of so great a magnitude that it prompts several more people to produce a piece of satire about that outraged response. If the reaction to the new satire is sufficiently humorless and outraged, it could spawn more satire exponentially, creating a cycle from which the human race may not ever emerge.

“The satire vortex is akin to a black hole,” explained Dr. Sennheimer from the Behavioral Sciences Institute. “It’s an area of intellectual mass that contains an enormous amount of satire, none of which is able to escape due to the gravity of ignorance.”

One of the first affected by the vortex was John Brand, liberal blogger and occasional contributor to the Chicagoist website.

“I thought the reaction to the [New Yorker’s] cover was hilarious,” said Brand. “People said they understood the cover was satirical but that they felt the depiction was offensive and damaging. Obviously they didn’t get the satire.”

Brand quickly published a short fictional piece based on a typical “priest and rabbi walk into a bar” joke and the subsequent vitriol from the respective religious communities about their faiths being associated with binge drinking.

“It wasn’t my best work, but I thought it was pretty funny,” said Brand.

Brand’s inbox was then flooded with angry e-mails from people who said they understood his post was satirical but felt that it would make people think that getting angry about a joke is acceptable behavior.

One e-mail read, “However well-intended, your piece may have the consequence of provoking angry, humorless reactions to jokes. This could result in us losing the ability to tell jokes at all. That’s so damaging, I can’t believe you [John Brand] risked that. Shame on you!”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Brand. “There’s material here, but trying to parse it makes my head hurt. I need to map this out.”

Reports from all over the Internet indicate that others like Brand have begun the potentially endless cycle of satire.

“John Brand and others like him have already produced satire about the outrage to the original satire,”
 said Dr. Sennheimer. ”With the new round of outrage, we will quickly advance to the stage where we will start seeing satire about the outrage to the satire about the outrage to the cover of The New Yorker.”

Brand could not be reached for further comment as he went to his local coffee shop with free Wi-Fi and does not get cell phone reception there.

Dr. Sennheimer did allow for the possibility of extrication from the vortex, but only if the news media get distracted by something else.

“Our only hope is that Fox News will once again shamelessly air comments recorded off camera,” said Dr. Sennheimer. “Or that one of the candidates’ advisors will make an offhand comment that can be blown out of proportion.”

“And it better happen soon. This could be the end of reasonable satire as we know it.”

Speaking of, one of the Court’s decisions was to overturn the District’s handgun ban, to which Obama gave his tepid and qualified support. His disagreement with the decision to strike down the use of death penalty on child rapists was much more clear.

In light of these recent policy changes, Obama’s marketing team has been scrambling to update campaign materials, including backdrops, bumper stickers, and t-shirts. Obama announced the new paraphernalia while standing at a podium emblazoned with a red, white, and blue sign that said, “Change…?”

“Red states, blues states, love, puppies,” Obama said. “And don’t forget rainbows, but not the gay ones.”

The crowd responded with thunderous applause and chants of “Sure, I suppose it’s a possibility!”

When I asked Obama to comment on this recent trend of moving towards popular positions rather than clearly explaining his principled viewpoint as he has done in the past, he yelled out, “Yeah! What that guy said! Here’s some candy!” Then, after handing me a piece of hard candy with a ribbon attached that said “Obama ‘08, Pretty Please,” he grabbed a torch and a pitchfork and ran off to join a crowd, murmuring something about monsters as he sprinted away.

Salute the Count, an eight-year-old gelding, tested positive for Clenbuterol, a drug that increases lung capacity. Any of this sound familiar? An athlete beyond his prime doping in order to prolong his career? These guys are all the same.

And don’t try to play the liberal blame game, accusing everyone who’s so much as watched a horse race of complicity. “Oh,” you’ll whine, “Rick Dutrow, the trainer of Salute the Count as well as recent Triple Crown hopeful Big Brown, has been caught giving steroids to horses every year since 2000!”

Or maybe you’ll say, “IEAH Stables, co-owner of Big Brown, just recently publicly stated its horses would stop taking steroids, an announcement that conveniently occurred right before Big Brown’s trainer got suspended, thereby implicitly acknowledging that their hands are dirty, too!”

Or else you crybabies will whimper, “There’s so much money in horse racing, particularly because of its marriage to gambling, that it should be surprising if horses WEREN’T found with all sorts of insane stuff in their systems!”

Whatever. Let’s lay accountability where it ought to be.

Who has more to lose? Some crappy trainer? Or a horse who has access to the finest medical care and nutrition America has to offer, gets to bask in the cheers of drunks and gambling addicts, and gets to walk around victoriously with a bunch of flowers draped over his overheated, frothing body?

So let’s air out this whole business and send the ones mucking up this beloved sport to the glue factory. We almost lost baseball. Let’s not lose horse-racing, too.

For most of the past five months, I had been an supporter of Barack Obama. I reacted to his oratorical prowess with cautious skepticism. As inspiring as he can be, he is, after all, still a politician. But, he’s smart, his community organizing experience puts him more in touch with people, and he would bring a fresh perspective to the White House, not to mention the first new surname in twenty years.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, I found abrasive and off-putting. Her “We’re always right” attitude reminded me of the Clinton years (and not in a good way), and her “Win at all costs” tactics are exactly the type of politicking that I’m tired of. She is not a fresh face. In fact, my feelings toward Hillary Clinton run closer to hate than to love. I wanted nothing more than for her to drop out of the race.

And that is why I’m endorsing her. Clinton’s announcement that she’s dropping out marks the first time ever that a politician has done exactly what I want her to do.

The past seven and a half years have been particularly bad for politicians doing what I want them to do. Specifically, I didn’t want George W. Bush to start a war with Iraq, and then he did. And then at every election cycle, I wanted him to stop talking about 9/11 and the War on Terror, but he wouldn’t do that, either. I thought things might change with the troop surge, because I actually supported that. It’s a tactic that was endorsed by academics and members of our allies’ armies who have studied counterinsurgency. It should’ve been employed immediately after the invasion, but, as they say, better late than never. Bush actually looked like he was going to do what I wanted him to do. But then he didn’t add as many troops as the experts said were needed! Just because I’d been used to him not doing what I wanted didn’t make it any easier to have my hopes lifted and then crushed.

I really thought Hillary Clinton was headed down that same path. Starting with her vote for the Iraq War and up through her idea for a gas tax holiday, she just didn’t do things I told her to do. And then she stayed in the race when it was clear she couldn’t win unless some tragedy befell Obama, which she actually brought up! When I would see Hillary Clinton on TV, my blood pressure would rise, and I would begin yelling, “You’re not going to win! You cannot win! Just…drop…out!!!” And what did she do? She said she’s going to drop out. In a democracy, you vote for someone who will represent your view, for someone who will be your voice. And Clinton did exactly what my voice was saying very loudly at the TV screen.

It hasn’t been only presidents and presidential candidates who haven’t done what I’ve wanted them to do. Take Rod Blagojevich, the beady-eyed soon-to-be-indicted governor of Illinois. Regional public transportation was short on funding and was going to have to severely cut back service. To keep that from happening, the legislature needed to come up with a solution. The governor didn’t want to sign anything that raised taxes, though, so I feared the worst when he received a plan that called for the sales tax to be increased by .25% - .50% (depending on what county you live in). “Just sign the bill, Rod!” I screamed. It seemed like an equitable solution that would allow me to continue getting around town like I needed to. And he said he’d sign the bill, but only if senior citizens got to ride free, a stipulation that no one knew anything about, including the governor, apparently. I said “Just sign the bill,” you hack!

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, complied with my wishes. “What are you trying to prove?!” I’d scream at the newspaper. “You’re helping nobody by staying in the race! Drop out! Drop out!!” And now she’s going to. My voice has been heard.

Non-executive branch politicians have also disappointed me. Idaho Senator Larry Craig has raised my ire on more than one occasion, if not for his conservative politics than for his participation in the barbershop group called The Singing Senators (surprise: they’re all old white men). “F— that guy in the a–,” I uttered on more than one occasion. When Senator Craig was arrested in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport last year, I was pleased to learn that he’d apparently been doing what I said all along. But then he made excuses that were not only lame but also involved awkward pieces of information about his bathroom routine, and denied the whole thing! I assume he did what I said, but he won’t ever admit it so I don’t know if it counts. I’m almost as confused as Senator Craig is.

But with Hillary Clinton - with her I have no doubt. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” I’d yell. “Literally any mathematical way you slice the delegates, you will not get this nomination! The only way you’ll win is if Obama does something terrible or if something terrible happens to Obama , which is why you mentioned Robert Kennedy’s assassination, because it was on your mind! And that scares the crap out of me! Now face reality and drop out of the race!”

And then Hillary Clinton stood at that podium in New York City on June 4, 2008, and said that she was going to drop out this Saturday. Which she’ll do. Probably. What more could I ask for at this point? She’s got my vote.

However, I may alter my endorsement, and give it to someone who isn’t even running, at that. If, in the coming days, Bill Clinton shuts up, apologizes to Obama, and admits that his vociferous and oft-irrational support of his wife is just a way to repent for the Monica Lewinsky scandal; and then he says that’s actually not true, it’s actually because all he wants out of life is to be in the White House again, to feel power, that delicious power. Then I will face a difficult dilemma of who to throw my full support behind.

I’ve attempted to develop a subversive personality, though I’ve preferred to let it manifest itself as a state of mind rather than, say, as any sort of manifestation. As I like to say, life’s short and I’d rather not spend it in a secret prison. My prudence even extended to this website, where I chose to remove such posts as “10 Delicious (and Healthy!) Lunch Ideas for Your Next Holy War” and “Pork: Now There’s a Meat I’d Like to Suicide Bomb.”

In spite of my caution, my contact at the Pentagon received the following message when trying to access my site:

Wanting to avoid the fate that befell The Amazing Mumford, I went backwards through my posts and came up with a list of possible hot words that might’ve tripped the sensors:

• Herbs
• A picture of V.I. Lenin (same link as above)
• Curry
• Stolen and uncited photographs (too many to link)
• An entire post involving time-travel, a well-kept Department of Defense secret
• Curry again!

I actually don’t think any of these items are flag-worthy, so I guess the trigger wasn’t something on the website. Just to be on the safe side, in the future, my posts will be limited to the following topics:

• Potatoes
• How great American food is
• Muppets, except for the aforementioned Mumford, Count von Count, and the Swedish Chef

If my site is squeaky clean, apparently the Pentagon was reacting against my subversive personality. Clearly my prudence is no match for my subconscious. It’s the dilemma of having such a dangerous mind.

So beware the subversive brain, Pentagon! You do not know the thoughts of which I am capable! I shall not shirk my duty - nay, my destiny - to be a theoretical leader in a hypothetical revolution! As long as I’ve been marked as an enemy of the state by a DoD firewall, there’s nothing that’s going to stop me now. Even as your advanced computers are sifting through my blog, I’m thinking about the ways I wish that U.S. foreign and domestic policy was different. And don’t push me - and I’ll know when I’m pushed, because I read the news occasionally - because if I have to, I’ll raise an army of imaginary friends with whom I will have pretend discussions over imported wine about the areas we feel the U.S. government could improve!

Vive la résistance imaginaire!

I was walking home after work one evening when I was approached from behind by a young man. I was alerted to his presence by a tap on my shoulder…

“Alex,” he said, “don’t panic, but we need to talk.”

When I turned around and faced him, what I saw made my stomach drop. Standing not two feet away from me was a man exactly my height, with my exact hair and my exact face, wearing clothing that looked exactly like clothing that was hanging in my closet at that very moment. Holy crap, I thought.

“Holy crap,” I said. “Who are you?”

“I am you,” he said, “a future you. I have traveled back in time to give you important information.”

“You’re me? But you look skinnier.”

“This is true,” he replied. “Very soon you will get a gym membership and stop eating meals in bars.”

“Awesome. And when did I learn how to go back in time?”

“Don’t ask questions,” he said. “You will learn about time travel in due time. But this…this you need to know about now…” Then he grabbed me by my shirt collar, pulled me close, and whispered, “Close your eyes, for you must not yet learn how to travel through time.”

The next thing I realized, we were standing in front of a brick three-flat in a quiet residential neighborhood. “Who lives here?” I asked. He replied by pointing a finger at my face.

“But it looks so small. Do I have roommates?”

“Yes and no,” he replied. “That’s why I’m here. Do you see that large package on the front stoop? That’s for you.”

“What is it?”

Grabbing me by my shoulders, he said, “That…that is the cat tree you ordered.”

“A cat tree? What is a cat tree?”

“It’s a jungle gym, but for cats.”

“My God…” I muttered. “I own a cat?”

He replied by raising his index and middle fingers. “Two,” he whispered. “You bought another one to make the first one happy.”

“And why did I get a cat tree?”

“To make them even happier, Alex.”

“But…that package is huge,” I said, my voice lowering.

“Fifty-two pounds. Once it’s built, it’ll be as tall as you are.”

“Fifty-two pounds? Jesus, shipping must’ve cost a fortune.”

“About $85.”

“$85??” I gasped, falling to my knees.

“Yes,” he said solemnly, “but don’t worry, your eBay bid for the actual item was only $1.”

“I bid for this? On eBay? But I never use eBay!”

“Nor will you ever again. But you really, really wanted a cat tree.”

“No…no…it can’t be! You’re lying…you’re lying!!”

“Am I lying, Alex? If I’m lying, explain these!” And he pulled up his shirt sleeves, revealing kitten scratches, kitten scratches on his hands, kitten scratches on his forearms. It was terrible.

“Noooo!!!! But why are you telling me this?!”

“Because,” he said, again grabbing my shirt collar, leaning over and pulling me up slightly from the ground, our faces inches apart. His voice was soft but with a gravelly intensity that recalling it even today, a year later, makes me weak in the knees. “Because,” he said,”IT…MUST…STOP…HERE!!!!”

And then he punched me in the face, and the next thing I remember I was lying in my bed in my old apartment. I figured it was a dream until…