Headlines from the Year 2020 (no. 8)

This is the eighth installment in a continuing series. Here is what life will be like in the year 2020 if our civilization continues to go AWOL:

• First transgendered bisexual mute paraplegic pygmy to win Miss America
• Another quarterback suspended from NFL for fondling his female center
• Dept. of Education orders closing of all school playgrounds due to their being “incubators of aggressive, sexist behavior”
• Native French population of Paris increased last year from 8 to 9 percent; chief imam of France warns of Muslim backlash
• New hate-crime law passes Senate; if defendant is judged to be “right-wing extremist,” sentence automatically lengthened by five years
• Pirates win class-action suit against Navy officer who mispronounced one word of Miranda rights
• CEOs of companies making green, sustainable, low-carbon products to be exempt from salary limits
• Forbes: Al Gore now wealthiest man on earth; “Yes, we can” he declares
• Tax Dept. announces new tax on taxpayers who resist taxation on existing taxes
• All veterans to undergo compulsory annual psychiatric exam
• Diplomatic corps to be trained in how to “avoid offending the religious sensibilities of one’s captors” and to “behave gracefully during a beheading”
• Arctic ice continues to expand; population of Alaska dwindles to fifty thousand
• Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals orders baseball teams to have equal number of left and right-handed batters and pitchers
• Neighborhood in Shanghai nicknamed “Wall Street Heights” after arrival of thousands of exiled American and European entrepreneurs
• Richard Dawkins appointed Archbishop of Canterbury; declares God to be nothing but a “primitive construct, fabricated by the male patriarchy to sidetrack the masses from their quest for authentic evolution”
• Average waiting time to see physician reaches ten months; Surgeon-General seizes property of doctors who refuse to accept patients
• NY Stock Exchange closes its doors after total value of private-sector capitalization falls under $5 million

Would you care to add your own headlines?

[Note: To see earlier installments of “Headlines from the Year 2020," click the All Fiction link on the sidebar.]