THE NEWS MAGAZINE OF THE COMPUTER SCREEN, VOL. 5

This article is part of the News Magazine of the Computer Screen series.

The four year ordeal that gripped North Dakota is at long last over. Governor Willard Hamburger II was rescued after spending three weeks trapped in the belly of the vicious whale he spent most of his term as governor pursuing!

"I just wanted to get back home and serve my constituents!" trumpeted the soggy governor, who lost an incredible forty pounds during his brief tenure inside the whale's stomach!

Governor Hamburger intended to kill the whale, which he nicknamed "Fudgie," in order to avenge the death of former Governor Chet Marmaduke. The hateful leviathan consumed Marmaduke whole as he bathed in open waters during a rear gubernatorial retreat to the Arctic Ocean.

Horrified at the senselessness of the loss, Willard Hamburger, regular citizen, won a landslide election on his campaign platform of vengeance! He then spent the first three years of his term in pursuit of the whale, tracking it through some of the most dangerous environments known to man, at great sacrifice to his own body.

"I hope my fellow North Dakotans can forgive my failure to kill the whale," said the heroic governor before a packed auditorium of supporters hanging on his every word. "But I promise you that I at least gave that son of a gun indigestion."

His rescue brought about a groundswell of support from all parts of the political spectrum in North Dakota!
Republicans and Democrats are crossing aisles to shake hands in agreement: Hamburger deserves a second term! In a rare moment of unity, North Dakota's notoriously nationalistic Kurdish population declared their support for a second Hamburger term.

"We can't really fault him for the unemployment, crime, and civil unrest, because he was out there risking his life for our honor," said husky resident Bernard Bigglesby. "He tried his hardest, and that doggone whale will spend an eternity in Hell I guarantee."

In an historic moment, North Dakota's State Legislature named a new official state bird in celebration. "The reign of the Western Meadowlark is at last over. Even though it not actually a bird, we hereby declare that the trident, Poseidon's weapon of choice, is the new state bird!"

Meanwhile, the opposition is scrambling to find a winning strategy. Leading independent candidate Ronald Valiant vowed he would make North Dakota even prouder by using his term to hunt and kill one of every beast on every continent.

"I promise my state a trophy room of unimaginable beauty!"

Now that's a whale of a tale!

Macon, Georgia residents are completely befuddled and at a loss to cope with the huge fiasco engulfing their town!

"This imbroglio is muddying the waters something fierce," said town resident Baldwin W. Baldwin in a cacophonous town hall meeting that quickly dissolved into an all-out fracas!

"I've been so busy with this fiasco I can't even plant my rhubarbs," complained a farmer so simple that his physical form resembled nothing more a 2-dimensional black square set against a white background so vacant that any attempt to describe it results in nothing more than blank spaces.

Never before has such an upheaval gripped such a community! The fiasco started on noon Sunday, and has continued unabated ever since. The fiasco is so severe that residents have yet to even figure out its exact nature, leaving them bewildered, confounded and unable to go about their business.

One stupefied resident had to be rushed to the hospital for medical treatment. "He scratched his head so vigorously he irritated his scalp!" reported this confused medical doctor. "That's how serious this quandary is!"

"Boy howdy!" shouted Mayor Mack Johnson in frustration. In spite of his best efforts, he has been unable to get control of the debacle that has led to half of his town shutting down due to city-wide discombobulation. "I can't make head or tails of this madness! It's a real slobber-knocker of a humdinger we got here!"

Experts are at a loss to explain the nature of the fiasco without becoming flabbergasted themselves. "If these buffoons don't get a grip on this scramble" said civic engineer Art Caper, "I fear it may spread to neighboring cities."

But Mayor Mack Johnson promises to prevent that. "This malarkey is ours, and I'll do my damndest to keep it that way come rain or monkeyshine."

Let's hope for a quick end to this perplexing fiasco!