(VGV) – 34 minutes ago

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia – For 33 years, Maridjan spoke to Mount Merapi, believing he could appease its unpredictable spirits by throwing offerings of rice, clothes and chickens into the volcano’s gaping crater.  He also believed that one day he could win the highest known award known to nut jobs around the world, The Darwin Award.

Many villagers took his word — not that of government officials or seismologists — as the last on when it would erupt. And the 83-year-old did appear to predict the volcano’s latest eruption — which killed 33 people this week, including himself and some that were waiting for his command to leave the volcano.

As Merapi began spewing 1,800 degree Fahrenheit (1,000 Celsius) gases and thousands of villagers streamed down the mountain’s slopes, Maridjan began spewing prayers and counting his chickens in preparation for more innocent animal sacrifices that some believe should no longer be allowed in Islam.  Maridjan refused to budge, and more than a dozen people stayed, and perished, with him.

His rigid body was found Wednesday, prostrate on the ground in the typical Islamic prayer position and caked in heavy white soot.

His selfless act to remove himself from the human gene pool, while simultaneously encouraging others of even lesser mind to join him.  His lifelong dedication to lunacy culminating in his effort to remove himself from the gene pool, would have quickly qualified him for a nomination in the 2010 Darwin Awards, but his extra effort to pull others over the precipice with him helped make his nomination a shoe in (not to mention a quick nomination for asshole of the year).

On Thursday, high-profile politicians, soap opera stars, singers and hundreds of family and followers cheered at his funeral when it was announced on the slopes of the mountain that had been entrusted to his care by a crazy late king that Maridjan was indeed on a fast track to victory presuming that Lindsay Lohan survives the year without a love child surfacing.

"I never thought he was going to leave us in such a way," said Prabukusumo, the brother of the sultan in the nearby court city of Yogyakarta who is now tasked with choosing his successor. "He’s lived through so many, much bigger eruptions. I’m still in shock."

But a friend said Maridjan seemed to be expecting his death.

When asked by his close friend, Wansafyudin, days before the eruption if it might not be better to leave, he refused, according to the English-language Jakarta Globe newspaper.

"My time to die in this place and reap the rewards of the Darwin Committee has almost come," he reportedly said.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is located on the so-called "Ring of Fire," a series of fault lines that are prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.

Merapi is one of the world’s most active mountains.

When he was 50, Maridjan inherited the position of "key holder" of the mountain from his father, receiving the official appointment from the sultan of Yogyakarta.

The mystical practice persists in Indonesia, even though most of the country’s 237 million people are Muslims. Islam is a relatively liberal new arrival to the country and, in many areas, coexists with older traditions that have their roots in animist, Hindu or Buddhist belief.

Maridjan was believed by many to have the ability to speak directly to the mountain and led ceremonies every year to hold back its lava flows by throwing rice, clothes and chickens into its dome.

Many villagers saw him as a hero, believing him over government officials and seismologists when it came to determining Merapi’s danger levels. But he was a constant source of frustration for those tasked with overseeing evacuations.

Among the 14 other people found dead in and around his home, halfway up the mountain, was an Indonesian Red Cross volunteer who was trying to persuade him to leave.  Indonesian Red Cross volunteers unlike their American counterparts are not trained in Darwin Award Nominee evacuation efforts.  In short, you don’t try to evacuate those who would be nominated, you just get as far away from them as possible.

Indonesia promises to eclipse many countries of the world in offering up future Darwin Award Nominees as well.  After, Maridjan’s death and Merapi’s continuing eruption, many villagers only yearn for his quicker replacement, if not an opportunity themselves.

"I’m more afraid than ever," said Prapto Wiyono, a 60-year-old farmer from the village of Pangukrejo, who was among thousands of people crammed in an emergency shelters. "Who’s going to tell us now what’s going on with Merapi?  First we lost our psychic mongoose who foretold the future by spitting cobra eyes in a bowl and now we have lost Maridjan.  I fear for myself, my children and my grandchildren.  We live in troubling times."

inspired by reality

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Mr. Pa C. Man died today after being attacked by a ghost in a small room separated by upright standing door like obstacles. He is survived by one Mrs. Pa C. Man, who authorities believe may also be at risk.

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Senior Grand Wizard and Subversive Materials Desk Chief Markoff Cheney announced at a press conference today that the Illuminati Department of the CIA had in fact created a plan to allow J.D. Salinger to die a very slow and very extra natural death.  He stopped short of saying that the death of the Catcher in the Rye was a conspiracy, but did admit that up to 13 different department heads had signed off on the plan in blood.

‘Its our job to decide when and where every man, woman and child must die.’ Markoff Cheney at a 2006 presentation at Disney World speaking to the Organizers of the New World Order.

Conspiracy theory buffs and nut jobs alike will likely take issue with the Illuminati over the natural death of Salinger.  Most fans expected Salinger to go out in a blaze of martyrdom like glory in a twisted an unexpected but very concealed manner.  That was not the case, or so we are led to believe.

~This report issued verbatim as allowed by the G20’s DOOP ROCTT (Department of Official Press Releases on Conspiracy Theories & Theorists).

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A fantastic and amazing winter poem has recently been unearthed by a truly talented poet, a poet that could rival the skills of Shakespeare or in the American genre Whitman.  There is even a scant sense of rye humor that hearkens back to great commentators and writers and humorists like Mark Twain or Bill Cosby.

Here is that Amazing poem recently sent to myself in the form of a viral email.

‘ WINTER ‘
by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre

Crap….It’s Cold

The End

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Pauli Zannfield thought that modeling as a t-shirt model might help him earn some extra cash while attending Tantaoui Sector University.

According to friends and family, one thing led to another and before long he was modeling t-shirts with a rebel propaganda slant. Late one night last fall, Storm Troopers broke down the door of his dormitory room and dragged him away to be dealt with by a Force Administrator.

Shortly there after class mates found his remains blown apart in a stunning explosion, designed to make an example.

Don’t let this happen to your college student, room mate, sibling, or robot building slave boy.

This message brought to you by the Emperor.

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On the monthly anniversary of the passing of WWII hero Darrell Shifty Powers, who was in all of the Band of Brothers episodes portrayed by Peter Youngblood Hills, I received an email that looked like one of those viral scams, but the email in fact is legitimate in content. 

"I could hear bullets and shrapnel hitting the plane. As I jumped out the door, I could see that the left motor was on fire." – Darrell Shifty Powers talking about jumping over Normandy, France, on D-Day.

Many, many of you have sent me notice that Shifty Powers of the heroic Easy Company, 2-506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division, died on June 17th.  I had no idea that he had passed on.  I have written here a lot about Easy Company and even have an autographed photo (Bill Guarnere) on my desk of the jump into Holland (Market Garden).

If you use GoogleNews (any combo of Darrell and/or Shifty Powers), there are less then ten notices of his death.  There are less than four articles about his passing on from "old media" news agencies.

Quite frankly, this is an affront to a genuinely good man.  Shifty Powers received two Bronze Stars and a CIB and fought in every campaign that Easy Company was in.  He was severely injured on his way home in a truck accident (the irony is that the men of Easy rigged the lottery to go home so Shifty would be first, but he ended up being one of the last to get home after an extensive hospitalization).

This email has gone viral about Shifty:

We’re hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said "Yes. And it’s real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can’t make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn’t know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I’d take his in coach.

He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center.

No wall to wall back to back 24×7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that’s not right.

Let’s give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

"A nation without heroes is nothing." – Roberto Clemente
Thank you,
Doug Corrigan
PC / Business Process & Systems Management
Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Fax: xxx-xxx-xxxx
email: doug.corrigan@xxxxxxxxx

Authors Note on the topic of Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers

I can not speak to whether or not the authenticity of the author is real yet, but the sentiment in the email is valid.  I have removed the authors phone and email addresses from this post, but did want to help increase the spread of this particular message.  We joke here at ViralGrapeVine about just about anything, and usually the wrong things at that. We have the luxury of doing that because veterans like Darrell helped secure our freedoms.  I am a veteran myself of the first Gulf War but my own story is of almost insignificant consequence compared to Darrell Powers with one small exception.

Just because a hero succeeds or survives or accomplishes something so great, it doesn’t mean the rest of us should stop trying.  I joined the service during the build up to the Persian Gulf War.  I was not drafted, did not need to join or anything like that.  I’m not a warmonger nor do I have many romantic notions about war or the military.  Members of my family have fought in almost every war that our country has been involved in since before the country was a country.  Yet, there was no family call for me to join, no wrong headed pursuit of family honor or anything.  In fact, many, possibly a majority of the veterans I spoke with in my family before I joined counseled me NOT to join the military.  I was dumb and lucky and things worked out fine for me. 

I also did not shy away from doing something (the dumb part) but I did it knowing the risks, knowing the potential consequences of my actions and more, some might equate that with courage.  My point is that even as I write this article on a site that is mostly egregiously poor satire, I do that to help protect the boundaries of my speech, trying to keep it free, and usually only just barely jogging myself out of writers block so that I may write somewhere else.

We can celebrate Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers in a national memorial, but putting his statue up on a physical pedestal is not really what this is about.  So if you pass on this email, if you have passed it on already or if you do anything to help promote this effort, remember that your efforts will be largely wasted if you personally are not doing something, anything everyday to also protect our freedoms.  You can worship a hero all you like, but if you don’t make even small heroic steps yourself, then your worship of said hero is hollow & baseless. 

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South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford just wants everyone to know that he is Michael Jackson’s biggest fan. 

“Next to Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, the Iranian People and those crazy North Korean bastards, there is no one I love more right now than Michael Jackson . . ., . .  I mean my wife and family and then Michael Jackson, those crazy North Korean bastards, the Iranian People, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon.” the governor reportedly stated as observed by a blind, deaf and dumb witness in the Governor’s office.

Next to Sony Records, Governor Mark Sanford probably has the most to gain from the media super blitz that is still ramping up even as this is typed.

Ben Bernanke and Wall Street are both happy campers too.  PR consultants around the world are scrambling to have their clients come forward with any and all bad news right now at this point in history where everything else is going to be ignored until after the 4th of July.

Separately, Osama Bin Laden is furious, still.

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After billions of posters sold, the late Farrah Fawcett now will get a chance to turn the tables on a world full of jerk offs.  Now, every time someone attempts the thinkable, while gazing at Farrah’s famous swimsuit image, Farrah might just be gazing back from the great unknown. 

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that lets you off the hook for your necrophilia yearnings.  She’s gone now, just let that one go sicko…. 

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People Are Rapidly Tuning Out Cable News for Twitter when it Comes to Breaking News Reports

Twitter Users were among the first people to share and see reports of the death of Britney Spears. Reports were filtering in through Twitter that Spears had passed away from an apparent overdose. Meanwhile cable news channels such as MSNBC and CNN continued to run reports about Michelle Obama’s clothing and the Presidential visit with Queen Elizabeth.

The death of Spears as reported on Twitter marks another episode in news, much like the plane that landed in the Husdon River where people standing near an event are better able to share details than any news organization in the world.

Spears was found catatonic in a restroom within the famous restaurant Genghis Cohn in Los Angeles. Patrons eating lunch were witnessed snapping pictures of paramedics removing Spears on stretchers. They did not appear to attempt any resuscitation while moving her out through the main restaurant.

Several people also uploaded images of what appeared to be lines of cocaine on the restroom counter.

There has been no official word from officials in Los Angeles nor from Spears family.

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