Playing Monopoly

Playing Monopoly

September 11, 2001

It's The Pitts
By Lee Pitts

There is a gaggle of economists who believe that in the not-so-distant future the world will be run, not by governments, but by multinational monopolistic corporations. And the economists think this would be a good thing! Obviously they haven’t done business with the U.S. Post Office or flown Monopoly Airlines lately.

When that day comes, here’s what your nightly news might sound like.

"Good evening, this is Ted Turner and you’re watching World News Tomorrow on your Time-Warner-AOL-Fox-Disney-Viacom-Universal-Simon and Schuster Network. In political news today at the One-World Trade Center, formerly known as the United Nations, Chairman Bill Clinton assembled his cabinet of business officials to deal with the growing proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world and the possibility of nuclear devices falling into the wrong hands. On the phone with us right now from New York we have the world’ s richest man, Bill Gates. Bill, tell us what is going on."

"Ted, I’ m glad to report we have solved the nuclear crises. It turns out that nuclear bombs have been so simple to operate that your average angry-at-the-world third grader could take one to school in his backpack. So we decided today to demand that all nuclear bombs be outfitted with software from my firm, Microsoft. As a result of using Nuclear Windows no terrorist will be able to figure out how to work the bombs, they’ll call tech support and be left on hold for the remainder of the 21st century, thus averting a nuclear disaster. Brilliant, Bill! Permit me to say what a great guy I think you are."

"In other news, the famine in Co-ca-Cola, the country formerly known as Bangla-desh before they sold their na-ming rights to the soft drink maker, worsened when shipments of rice failed to arrive. The only airline that flies to that country, American-United, had two scheduled flights but one was canceled and the other had a mechanical breakdown. Company officials deny that the rice is now lost somewhere in the baggage claim department of a major airport.

"In lieu of food American-United has promised that all the starving people in Coca Cola will be awarded 500 frequent flier miles. Meanwhile other companies have stepped up their efforts to feed the hungry. McDonalds says it plans to build 100 new restaurants in the third world country within the year and Wal-Mart has announced that it’s lowering its already low-everyday-prices in all of its stores in the country of Coca-Cola.

"In response to the food shortage. Hallmark Cards rushed to market a series of greeting cards to be sent to hungry famine victims and in each card is a seed of corn or wheat. However, Monsanto went to court to halt the move by Hallmark because the genetically altered seeds came from last year’s crop and are therefore illegal. Hallmark says it won’t fight but will instead buy this year’s version of patented seed.

"In a related story, Microsoft announced they are buying Monsanto, with Bill Gates saying, ‘I like their style.’ In baseball, brought to you tonight and every night by the Citigroup Stock Market, the Dupont Dodgers lost to the Anheuser Busch Budweisers and a Washington DC intern was fired for not playing ball with a Congressman from Archer Daniels Midland.

"The critics have spoken and they love Jurassic Park 15, the latest from Time-Warner-AOL-Fox-Disney-Viacom-Universal-Simon and Schuster. Actually one critic panned the movie but he’ s making tennis shoes in China for six cents an hour now.

"I’m Ted Turner and that’ s World News Tomorrow. Coming up next we WERE going to bring you a special report of the huge oil spill off Alaska, but since Exxon is one of our sponsors we decided to show a documentary on the benefits of petroleum products on shore birds. For those of you watching any one of our other 499 channels stay tuned for Martha Stewart as she shows us how to frost a two-layer cake."