#appropriatesupervision

America's Perfect Chinese-American Candidate for 2028: A Very British Guide to the Yanks' Latest Constitutional Loophole Every four years our American cousins promise the electorate a candidate who is "finally different," and every four years he turns out to be exactly the same fellow with a new haircut and a fresh grievance. This cycle, however, Washington has genuinely surpassed itself, and it falls to us here at The London Prat to explain the spectacle to a British readership, the way one might narrate a cricket match to someone who has only ever watched baseball and found it slow. Meet Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen: born in Anaheim, raised on ambition, and constitutionally as American as a Big Gulp, which, we are assured, is the entire point. Chen is entirely invented — a satirical construction, not a real person, and not an accusation against any actual candidate, party, or ethnic group. He exists so we can ask an old question in new fancy dress: what happens when a democracy becomes so allergic to asking hard questions that it simply stops asking them, provided the candidate answers in a sufficiently soothing tone and owns a flag pin? Born Six Miles From a Cheesecake Factory, Which Apparently Counts Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen arrived on American soil during what his parents' visa paperwork cheerfully described as a "three-week prenatal technology conference," a phrase that would get you laughed out of a Home Office interview room in roughly four seconds. Thirty-five years later, he announces his candidacy for President of the United States, proving that long-term strategic planning is simply pregnancy with a PowerPoint presentation attached. His campaign biography notes, with the pride of a man who has never queued for anything, that he was born within six miles of a Cheesecake Factory — a detail his consultants insist makes him constitutionally American and medically Californian. When journalists raise questions about his loyalties, his press secretary responds that questioning anyone's loyalties is "deeply un-American," particularly before the first debate and especially before the second fundraising quarter closes. We in Britain simply call this "not answering the question," a national pastime we invented and are frankly disappointed to see exported so badly. The Birthright Citizenship Loophole Even We Find Impressive Under the American Constitution, a natural-born citizen may run for president regardless of ancestry, a fact Chen's team repeats so often it has become the campaign's unofficial tagline. Somewhere in a windowless conference room, a strategist high-fives another strategist, and the sound echoes like a gavel — or, as we would say, like a very confident man closing a very leaky door. Marxism, But Sold as a Subscription Tier Chen describes his economic philosophy as "democratic market Marxism with entrepreneurial characteristics," a phrase that took eleven consultants and one collective nervous breakdown to draft. Translated into plain English, the sort we prefer on this side of the Atlantic: the government owns everything, but citizens may still select from three tiers, rather like choosing a mobile phone contract you didn't want and cannot cancel. The Basic Plan confiscates your property and emails you a confirmation. The Premium Plan offers priority collectivisation, two complimentary struggle sessions, and validated parking at the Department of Historical Inevitability. Chen insists none of this constitutes communism. It is, he explains with a perfectly straight face, simply capitalism in which the government happens to be the only shareholder — a distinction that satisfies focus groups and precisely nobody with a current account. A Very Good Idea, Delivered With the Confidence of a Man Who's Never Been Wrong As Frankie Boyle might put it if he ever turned his attention westward, some ideas survive purely on the confidence of the person selling them, not the substance underneath — and no campaign has field-tested that principle more thoroughly than one promising cradle-to-grave state ownership delivered with the enthusiasm of a Sunday car advert. A Slogan So Careful It Forgets Which Country Comes First The official campaign slogan reads: "America Forward, Together, Harmoniously, Under Appropriate Supervision." Internal polling, leaked to absolutely nobody because nobody leaked it, reportedly rejected alternatives including "Build Back Beijing," "Yes, We Scan," and the fan favourite, "Four More Years, Five More Plans" — none of which, we note, would survive thirty seconds on a British doorstep before someone shut the door. The winning slogan tested well because it contains every word American voters enjoy, minus "tax," "mandatory," and "re-education." Chen insists America will always come first. He simply declines to specify first in which queue, first through which checkpoint, or first past which committee — a vagueness we would ordinarily associate with a minister answering questions at the despatch box. Independent, Except for the Instructions Chen's campaign insists, repeatedly and unprompted, that no foreign government directs his policy positions. He merely receives occasional unsolicited suggestions from anonymous diplomatic social media accounts, each opening with some variation of "Dear respected independent candidate, here is tomorrow's spontaneous opinion." Each morning at precisely 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time, the campaign releases an entirely original statement that happens to be identical to one issued overseas at 5:59. His advisers call this a coincidence. Statisticians call it extremely unlikely. Washington, as always, calls it Tuesday. The Elephant Completes Its Diversity Paperwork This is not an entirely fictional pattern, and Britain has watched the wider story unfold with the particular fascination reserved for other people's constitutional crises. Former Philippine mayor Alice Guo — who a Manila court sentenced to life in prison for running a trafficking and scam operation, after officials alleged she was in fact a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen — became the case study every satirist secretly dreams of finding pre-written. Senate investigators went so far as to formally examine allegations that she was tied to China's Ministry of State Security, and the BBC's own coverage of her arrest in Indonesia made clear how far the rabbit hole went — fingerprints matching another identity, a fugitive route across four countries, and a hometown scam compound large enough to misplace 700 people inside it. None of it proves espionage in a court of law, and it shouldn't be treated as more than allegation where courts haven't ruled on that specific charge — but it is more than enough raw material for a joke that writes most of itself, which is more than can be said for most Westminster scandals. Historic Transparency, Defined as 897 Black Rectangles American reporters have hailed Chen as the most transparent candidate in modern memory, largely because his campaign distributed a 900-page transparency document. Unfortunately, 897 of those pages are solid black rectangles, which is roughly the redaction ratio of a British public inquiry, only faster and with better catering. Asked whether he supports a free press, Chen says absolutely — he believes every journalist should be free to publish the government's response without alteration. The press corps applauds, mostly because the statement arrives with excellent catering. An Economy Built on Marx, Wall Street, and a Costco Card Chen's economic plan calls for seizing the means of production, securitising them, and selling fractional ownership to institutional investors. Workers, he promises, will own the factories — through a government pension fund managed by consultants who own houses in Connecticut, which we understand to be America's answer to the Cotswolds. The campaign calls this "people-powered prosperity." The people, notably, provide the power. Someone else receives the prosperity. Seven Types of Wordplay the Special Relationship Cannot Escape Consider the campaign itself a small museum of comic technique: the pun ("Yes, We Scan"), the malapropism ("democratic market Marxism"), the euphemism ("appropriate supervision"), the oxymoron ("historic transparency"), the double entendre ("priority collectivisation"), the portmanteau ("Build Back Beijing"), and finally the ironic understatement — Chen calling himself "completely independent" while his 6:00 a.m. statements arrive pre-synchronised with a foreign ministry's press office, like two clocks that have quietly agreed to lie about the time together. Every Criticism Is Either Racism or Counterrevolution Questioning Chen's policies is labelled xenophobic. Questioning his ideology is labelled McCarthyism. Questioning his donors is labelled an invasion of privacy. Questioning why campaign headquarters contains a room labelled "External Guidance Committee" is labelled trespassing. The result is a remarkably efficient political system in which the candidate never answers anything, and America achieves a rare bipartisan consensus: questions are dangerous, particularly when directed at one's own candidate. Britain, for what it's worth, achieved this same consensus decades ago and simply calls it Prime Minister's Questions. Washington Welcomes Him Because He Already Speaks Lobbyist Chen adapts to American politics with startling speed, having correctly identified that lobbying is merely influence operations served with shrimp cocktail rather than a warm gin and tonic in a Westminster function room. Foreign interference is illegal when conducted by hackers but perfectly respectable when conducted by a former senator billing $1,800 an hour. His campaign hires 74 registered lobbyists specifically to prove it has nothing to hide, and one explains, with admirable sincerity, that influence becomes democratic "after the third invoice." By Election Day, nobody can say with confidence whether Chen works for Beijing, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the teachers' unions, or a mid-size pharmaceutical company. Voters find this oddly reassuring. It means, at last, that he has become completely American. Free Speech, Protected by a Very Attentive Filing Cabinet Chen unveils the Freedom of Expression Preservation Act, which requires every opinion to be securely preserved in a searchable government database. Citizens remain free to say anything they like. The government simply retains the freedom to remember it forever. The campaign insists this is not surveillance — it's a "national memory garden," complete with a personal file, a social-harmony rating, and a cheerful notification whenever a neighbour files a report. British readers may recognise the general architecture, minus the cheerful notification, which is a nice touch we should probably steal. Voters Elect Him for Being Merely Strange, Not Historically Strange In the general election, Chen faces a billionaire podcaster, a 94-year-old senator, a governor campaigning entirely on weather emergencies, and an independent who believes the Federal Reserve is secretly run by dolphins. Against that field, the polite Marxist with suspiciously synchronised talking points suddenly looks like the reasonable one — a phenomenon British voters will recognise from at least four general elections running. He wears a flag pin. He attends a baseball game. He claims to enjoy corn dogs, though he holds one like it's laboratory evidence. Exit polls show voters distrusted his ideology, questioned his foreign ties, and disliked his economic platform — and elected him anyway, because he looked into the camera and promised to make the other guy stop talking. As Jimmy Carr once observed of a certain type of confidently hollow promise, the joke isn't that people believe it; the joke is that they know it's nonsense and vote for it regardless, purely for the novelty of a full stop at the end of the sentence. Political Scientists Reach a Modest Conclusion Researchers later identify this as the decisive factor in every American election since the invention of television: not ideology, not policy, not loyalty — just whichever candidate can make the audience stop yelling at the screen for thirty consecutive seconds. Westminster, we note with some relief, has simply never had a screen loud enough to test the theory. Disclaimer: This satire invents Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen and does not allege that Chinese Americans, immigrants, or natural-born citizens of Chinese ancestry are disloyal. It lampoons authoritarian influence operations, ideological opportunism, political consultants, institutional cowardice, and Washington's habit of noticing the obvious approximately six congressional hearings after everyone else already has. Readers who prefer their satire with a corn dog and a Cheesecake Factory instead of a chip shop and a struggling high street should visit our American sister publication, Bohiney.com, for the original dispatch on Mr Chen's remarkable candidacy. This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. Auf Wiedersehen, amigo! Read the full article

America's Perfect Chinese-American Candidate for 2028: A Very British Guide to the Yanks' Latest Constitutional Loophole Every four years our American cousins promise the electorate a candidate who is "finally different," and every four years he turns out to be exactly the same fellow with a new haircut and a fresh grievance. This cycle, however, Washington has genuinely surpassed itself, and it falls to us here at The London Prat to explain the spectacle to a British readership, the way one might narrate a cricket match to someone who has only ever watched baseball and found it slow. Meet Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen: born in Anaheim, raised on ambition, and constitutionally as American as a Big Gulp, which, we are assured, is the entire point. Chen is entirely invented — a satirical construction, not a real person, and not an accusation against any actual candidate, party, or ethnic group. He exists so we can ask an old question in new fancy dress: what happens when a democracy becomes so allergic to asking hard questions that it simply stops asking them, provided the candidate answers in a sufficiently soothing tone and owns a flag pin? Born Six Miles From a Cheesecake Factory, Which Apparently Counts Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen arrived on American soil during what his parents' visa paperwork cheerfully described as a "three-week prenatal technology conference," a phrase that would get you laughed out of a Home Office interview room in roughly four seconds. Thirty-five years later, he announces his candidacy for President of the United States, proving that long-term strategic planning is simply pregnancy with a PowerPoint presentation attached. His campaign biography notes, with the pride of a man who has never queued for anything, that he was born within six miles of a Cheesecake Factory — a detail his consultants insist makes him constitutionally American and medically Californian. When journalists raise questions about his loyalties, his press secretary responds that questioning anyone's loyalties is "deeply un-American," particularly before the first debate and especially before the second fundraising quarter closes. We in Britain simply call this "not answering the question," a national pastime we invented and are frankly disappointed to see exported so badly. The Birthright Citizenship Loophole Even We Find Impressive Under the American Constitution, a natural-born citizen may run for president regardless of ancestry, a fact Chen's team repeats so often it has become the campaign's unofficial tagline. Somewhere in a windowless conference room, a strategist high-fives another strategist, and the sound echoes like a gavel — or, as we would say, like a very confident man closing a very leaky door. Marxism, But Sold as a Subscription Tier Chen describes his economic philosophy as "democratic market Marxism with entrepreneurial characteristics," a phrase that took eleven consultants and one collective nervous breakdown to draft. Translated into plain English, the sort we prefer on this side of the Atlantic: the government owns everything, but citizens may still select from three tiers, rather like choosing a mobile phone contract you didn't want and cannot cancel. The Basic Plan confiscates your property and emails you a confirmation. The Premium Plan offers priority collectivisation, two complimentary struggle sessions, and validated parking at the Department of Historical Inevitability. Chen insists none of this constitutes communism. It is, he explains with a perfectly straight face, simply capitalism in which the government happens to be the only shareholder — a distinction that satisfies focus groups and precisely nobody with a current account. A Very Good Idea, Delivered With the Confidence of a Man Who's Never Been Wrong As Frankie Boyle might put it if he ever turned his attention westward, some ideas survive purely on the confidence of the person selling them, not the substance underneath — and no campaign has field-tested that principle more thoroughly than one promising cradle-to-grave state ownership delivered with the enthusiasm of a Sunday car advert. A Slogan So Careful It Forgets Which Country Comes First The official campaign slogan reads: "America Forward, Together, Harmoniously, Under Appropriate Supervision." Internal polling, leaked to absolutely nobody because nobody leaked it, reportedly rejected alternatives including "Build Back Beijing," "Yes, We Scan," and the fan favourite, "Four More Years, Five More Plans" — none of which, we note, would survive thirty seconds on a British doorstep before someone shut the door. The winning slogan tested well because it contains every word American voters enjoy, minus "tax," "mandatory," and "re-education." Chen insists America will always come first. He simply declines to specify first in which queue, first through which checkpoint, or first past which committee — a vagueness we would ordinarily associate with a minister answering questions at the despatch box. Independent, Except for the Instructions Chen's campaign insists, repeatedly and unprompted, that no foreign government directs his policy positions. He merely receives occasional unsolicited suggestions from anonymous diplomatic social media accounts, each opening with some variation of "Dear respected independent candidate, here is tomorrow's spontaneous opinion." Each morning at precisely 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time, the campaign releases an entirely original statement that happens to be identical to one issued overseas at 5:59. His advisers call this a coincidence. Statisticians call it extremely unlikely. Washington, as always, calls it Tuesday. The Elephant Completes Its Diversity Paperwork This is not an entirely fictional pattern, and Britain has watched the wider story unfold with the particular fascination reserved for other people's constitutional crises. Former Philippine mayor Alice Guo — who a Manila court sentenced to life in prison for running a trafficking and scam operation, after officials alleged she was in fact a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen — became the case study every satirist secretly dreams of finding pre-written. Senate investigators went so far as to formally examine allegations that she was tied to China's Ministry of State Security, and the BBC's own coverage of her arrest in Indonesia made clear how far the rabbit hole went — fingerprints matching another identity, a fugitive route across four countries, and a hometown scam compound large enough to misplace 700 people inside it. None of it proves espionage in a court of law, and it shouldn't be treated as more than allegation where courts haven't ruled on that specific charge — but it is more than enough raw material for a joke that writes most of itself, which is more than can be said for most Westminster scandals. Historic Transparency, Defined as 897 Black Rectangles American reporters have hailed Chen as the most transparent candidate in modern memory, largely because his campaign distributed a 900-page transparency document. Unfortunately, 897 of those pages are solid black rectangles, which is roughly the redaction ratio of a British public inquiry, only faster and with better catering. Asked whether he supports a free press, Chen says absolutely — he believes every journalist should be free to publish the government's response without alteration. The press corps applauds, mostly because the statement arrives with excellent catering. An Economy Built on Marx, Wall Street, and a Costco Card Chen's economic plan calls for seizing the means of production, securitising them, and selling fractional ownership to institutional investors. Workers, he promises, will own the factories — through a government pension fund managed by consultants who own houses in Connecticut, which we understand to be America's answer to the Cotswolds. The campaign calls this "people-powered prosperity." The people, notably, provide the power. Someone else receives the prosperity. Seven Types of Wordplay the Special Relationship Cannot Escape Consider the campaign itself a small museum of comic technique: the pun ("Yes, We Scan"), the malapropism ("democratic market Marxism"), the euphemism ("appropriate supervision"), the oxymoron ("historic transparency"), the double entendre ("priority collectivisation"), the portmanteau ("Build Back Beijing"), and finally the ironic understatement — Chen calling himself "completely independent" while his 6:00 a.m. statements arrive pre-synchronised with a foreign ministry's press office, like two clocks that have quietly agreed to lie about the time together. Every Criticism Is Either Racism or Counterrevolution Questioning Chen's policies is labelled xenophobic. Questioning his ideology is labelled McCarthyism. Questioning his donors is labelled an invasion of privacy. Questioning why campaign headquarters contains a room labelled "External Guidance Committee" is labelled trespassing. The result is a remarkably efficient political system in which the candidate never answers anything, and America achieves a rare bipartisan consensus: questions are dangerous, particularly when directed at one's own candidate. Britain, for what it's worth, achieved this same consensus decades ago and simply calls it Prime Minister's Questions. Washington Welcomes Him Because He Already Speaks Lobbyist Chen adapts to American politics with startling speed, having correctly identified that lobbying is merely influence operations served with shrimp cocktail rather than a warm gin and tonic in a Westminster function room. Foreign interference is illegal when conducted by hackers but perfectly respectable when conducted by a former senator billing $1,800 an hour. His campaign hires 74 registered lobbyists specifically to prove it has nothing to hide, and one explains, with admirable sincerity, that influence becomes democratic "after the third invoice." By Election Day, nobody can say with confidence whether Chen works for Beijing, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the teachers' unions, or a mid-size pharmaceutical company. Voters find this oddly reassuring. It means, at last, that he has become completely American. Free Speech, Protected by a Very Attentive Filing Cabinet Chen unveils the Freedom of Expression Preservation Act, which requires every opinion to be securely preserved in a searchable government database. Citizens remain free to say anything they like. The government simply retains the freedom to remember it forever. The campaign insists this is not surveillance — it's a "national memory garden," complete with a personal file, a social-harmony rating, and a cheerful notification whenever a neighbour files a report. British readers may recognise the general architecture, minus the cheerful notification, which is a nice touch we should probably steal. Voters Elect Him for Being Merely Strange, Not Historically Strange In the general election, Chen faces a billionaire podcaster, a 94-year-old senator, a governor campaigning entirely on weather emergencies, and an independent who believes the Federal Reserve is secretly run by dolphins. Against that field, the polite Marxist with suspiciously synchronised talking points suddenly looks like the reasonable one — a phenomenon British voters will recognise from at least four general elections running. He wears a flag pin. He attends a baseball game. He claims to enjoy corn dogs, though he holds one like it's laboratory evidence. Exit polls show voters distrusted his ideology, questioned his foreign ties, and disliked his economic platform — and elected him anyway, because he looked into the camera and promised to make the other guy stop talking. As Jimmy Carr once observed of a certain type of confidently hollow promise, the joke isn't that people believe it; the joke is that they know it's nonsense and vote for it regardless, purely for the novelty of a full stop at the end of the sentence. Political Scientists Reach a Modest Conclusion Researchers later identify this as the decisive factor in every American election since the invention of television: not ideology, not policy, not loyalty — just whichever candidate can make the audience stop yelling at the screen for thirty consecutive seconds. Westminster, we note with some relief, has simply never had a screen loud enough to test the theory. Disclaimer: This satire invents Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen and does not allege that Chinese Americans, immigrants, or natural-born citizens of Chinese ancestry are disloyal. It lampoons authoritarian influence operations, ideological opportunism, political consultants, institutional cowardice, and Washington's habit of noticing the obvious approximately six congressional hearings after everyone else already has. Readers who prefer their satire with a corn dog and a Cheesecake Factory instead of a chip shop and a struggling high street should visit our American sister publication, Bohiney.com, for the original dispatch on Mr Chen's remarkable candidacy. This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. Auf Wiedersehen, amigo! Read the full article

America's Perfect Chinese-American Candidate for 2028: A Very British Guide to the Yanks' Latest Constitutional Loophole Every four years our American cousins promise the electorate a candidate who is "finally different," and every four years he turns out to be exactly the same fellow with a new haircut and a fresh grievance. This cycle, however, Washington has genuinely surpassed itself, and it falls to us here at The London Prat to explain the spectacle to a British readership, the way one might narrate a cricket match to someone who has only ever watched baseball and found it slow. Meet Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen: born in Anaheim, raised on ambition, and constitutionally as American as a Big Gulp, which, we are assured, is the entire point. Chen is entirely invented — a satirical construction, not a real person, and not an accusation against any actual candidate, party, or ethnic group. He exists so we can ask an old question in new fancy dress: what happens when a democracy becomes so allergic to asking hard questions that it simply stops asking them, provided the candidate answers in a sufficiently soothing tone and owns a flag pin? Born Six Miles From a Cheesecake Factory, Which Apparently Counts Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen arrived on American soil during what his parents' visa paperwork cheerfully described as a "three-week prenatal technology conference," a phrase that would get you laughed out of a Home Office interview room in roughly four seconds. Thirty-five years later, he announces his candidacy for President of the United States, proving that long-term strategic planning is simply pregnancy with a PowerPoint presentation attached. His campaign biography notes, with the pride of a man who has never queued for anything, that he was born within six miles of a Cheesecake Factory — a detail his consultants insist makes him constitutionally American and medically Californian. When journalists raise questions about his loyalties, his press secretary responds that questioning anyone's loyalties is "deeply un-American," particularly before the first debate and especially before the second fundraising quarter closes. We in Britain simply call this "not answering the question," a national pastime we invented and are frankly disappointed to see exported so badly. The Birthright Citizenship Loophole Even We Find Impressive Under the American Constitution, a natural-born citizen may run for president regardless of ancestry, a fact Chen's team repeats so often it has become the campaign's unofficial tagline. Somewhere in a windowless conference room, a strategist high-fives another strategist, and the sound echoes like a gavel — or, as we would say, like a very confident man closing a very leaky door. Marxism, But Sold as a Subscription Tier Chen describes his economic philosophy as "democratic market Marxism with entrepreneurial characteristics," a phrase that took eleven consultants and one collective nervous breakdown to draft. Translated into plain English, the sort we prefer on this side of the Atlantic: the government owns everything, but citizens may still select from three tiers, rather like choosing a mobile phone contract you didn't want and cannot cancel. The Basic Plan confiscates your property and emails you a confirmation. The Premium Plan offers priority collectivisation, two complimentary struggle sessions, and validated parking at the Department of Historical Inevitability. Chen insists none of this constitutes communism. It is, he explains with a perfectly straight face, simply capitalism in which the government happens to be the only shareholder — a distinction that satisfies focus groups and precisely nobody with a current account. A Very Good Idea, Delivered With the Confidence of a Man Who's Never Been Wrong As Frankie Boyle might put it if he ever turned his attention westward, some ideas survive purely on the confidence of the person selling them, not the substance underneath — and no campaign has field-tested that principle more thoroughly than one promising cradle-to-grave state ownership delivered with the enthusiasm of a Sunday car advert. A Slogan So Careful It Forgets Which Country Comes First The official campaign slogan reads: "America Forward, Together, Harmoniously, Under Appropriate Supervision." Internal polling, leaked to absolutely nobody because nobody leaked it, reportedly rejected alternatives including "Build Back Beijing," "Yes, We Scan," and the fan favourite, "Four More Years, Five More Plans" — none of which, we note, would survive thirty seconds on a British doorstep before someone shut the door. The winning slogan tested well because it contains every word American voters enjoy, minus "tax," "mandatory," and "re-education." Chen insists America will always come first. He simply declines to specify first in which queue, first through which checkpoint, or first past which committee — a vagueness we would ordinarily associate with a minister answering questions at the despatch box. Independent, Except for the Instructions Chen's campaign insists, repeatedly and unprompted, that no foreign government directs his policy positions. He merely receives occasional unsolicited suggestions from anonymous diplomatic social media accounts, each opening with some variation of "Dear respected independent candidate, here is tomorrow's spontaneous opinion." Each morning at precisely 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time, the campaign releases an entirely original statement that happens to be identical to one issued overseas at 5:59. His advisers call this a coincidence. Statisticians call it extremely unlikely. Washington, as always, calls it Tuesday. The Elephant Completes Its Diversity Paperwork This is not an entirely fictional pattern, and Britain has watched the wider story unfold with the particular fascination reserved for other people's constitutional crises. Former Philippine mayor Alice Guo — who a Manila court sentenced to life in prison for running a trafficking and scam operation, after officials alleged she was in fact a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen — became the case study every satirist secretly dreams of finding pre-written. Senate investigators went so far as to formally examine allegations that she was tied to China's Ministry of State Security, and the BBC's own coverage of her arrest in Indonesia made clear how far the rabbit hole went — fingerprints matching another identity, a fugitive route across four countries, and a hometown scam compound large enough to misplace 700 people inside it. None of it proves espionage in a court of law, and it shouldn't be treated as more than allegation where courts haven't ruled on that specific charge — but it is more than enough raw material for a joke that writes most of itself, which is more than can be said for most Westminster scandals. Historic Transparency, Defined as 897 Black Rectangles American reporters have hailed Chen as the most transparent candidate in modern memory, largely because his campaign distributed a 900-page transparency document. Unfortunately, 897 of those pages are solid black rectangles, which is roughly the redaction ratio of a British public inquiry, only faster and with better catering. Asked whether he supports a free press, Chen says absolutely — he believes every journalist should be free to publish the government's response without alteration. The press corps applauds, mostly because the statement arrives with excellent catering. An Economy Built on Marx, Wall Street, and a Costco Card Chen's economic plan calls for seizing the means of production, securitising them, and selling fractional ownership to institutional investors. Workers, he promises, will own the factories — through a government pension fund managed by consultants who own houses in Connecticut, which we understand to be America's answer to the Cotswolds. The campaign calls this "people-powered prosperity." The people, notably, provide the power. Someone else receives the prosperity. Seven Types of Wordplay the Special Relationship Cannot Escape Consider the campaign itself a small museum of comic technique: the pun ("Yes, We Scan"), the malapropism ("democratic market Marxism"), the euphemism ("appropriate supervision"), the oxymoron ("historic transparency"), the double entendre ("priority collectivisation"), the portmanteau ("Build Back Beijing"), and finally the ironic understatement — Chen calling himself "completely independent" while his 6:00 a.m. statements arrive pre-synchronised with a foreign ministry's press office, like two clocks that have quietly agreed to lie about the time together. Every Criticism Is Either Racism or Counterrevolution Questioning Chen's policies is labelled xenophobic. Questioning his ideology is labelled McCarthyism. Questioning his donors is labelled an invasion of privacy. Questioning why campaign headquarters contains a room labelled "External Guidance Committee" is labelled trespassing. The result is a remarkably efficient political system in which the candidate never answers anything, and America achieves a rare bipartisan consensus: questions are dangerous, particularly when directed at one's own candidate. Britain, for what it's worth, achieved this same consensus decades ago and simply calls it Prime Minister's Questions. Washington Welcomes Him Because He Already Speaks Lobbyist Chen adapts to American politics with startling speed, having correctly identified that lobbying is merely influence operations served with shrimp cocktail rather than a warm gin and tonic in a Westminster function room. Foreign interference is illegal when conducted by hackers but perfectly respectable when conducted by a former senator billing $1,800 an hour. His campaign hires 74 registered lobbyists specifically to prove it has nothing to hide, and one explains, with admirable sincerity, that influence becomes democratic "after the third invoice." By Election Day, nobody can say with confidence whether Chen works for Beijing, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the teachers' unions, or a mid-size pharmaceutical company. Voters find this oddly reassuring. It means, at last, that he has become completely American. Free Speech, Protected by a Very Attentive Filing Cabinet Chen unveils the Freedom of Expression Preservation Act, which requires every opinion to be securely preserved in a searchable government database. Citizens remain free to say anything they like. The government simply retains the freedom to remember it forever. The campaign insists this is not surveillance — it's a "national memory garden," complete with a personal file, a social-harmony rating, and a cheerful notification whenever a neighbour files a report. British readers may recognise the general architecture, minus the cheerful notification, which is a nice touch we should probably steal. Voters Elect Him for Being Merely Strange, Not Historically Strange In the general election, Chen faces a billionaire podcaster, a 94-year-old senator, a governor campaigning entirely on weather emergencies, and an independent who believes the Federal Reserve is secretly run by dolphins. Against that field, the polite Marxist with suspiciously synchronised talking points suddenly looks like the reasonable one — a phenomenon British voters will recognise from at least four general elections running. He wears a flag pin. He attends a baseball game. He claims to enjoy corn dogs, though he holds one like it's laboratory evidence. Exit polls show voters distrusted his ideology, questioned his foreign ties, and disliked his economic platform — and elected him anyway, because he looked into the camera and promised to make the other guy stop talking. As Jimmy Carr once observed of a certain type of confidently hollow promise, the joke isn't that people believe it; the joke is that they know it's nonsense and vote for it regardless, purely for the novelty of a full stop at the end of the sentence. Political Scientists Reach a Modest Conclusion Researchers later identify this as the decisive factor in every American election since the invention of television: not ideology, not policy, not loyalty — just whichever candidate can make the audience stop yelling at the screen for thirty consecutive seconds. Westminster, we note with some relief, has simply never had a screen loud enough to test the theory. Disclaimer: This satire invents Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen and does not allege that Chinese Americans, immigrants, or natural-born citizens of Chinese ancestry are disloyal. It lampoons authoritarian influence operations, ideological opportunism, political consultants, institutional cowardice, and Washington's habit of noticing the obvious approximately six congressional hearings after everyone else already has. Readers who prefer their satire with a corn dog and a Cheesecake Factory instead of a chip shop and a struggling high street should visit our American sister publication, Bohiney.com, for the original dispatch on Mr Chen's remarkable candidacy. This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. Auf Wiedersehen, amigo! Read the full article

America's Perfect Chinese-American Candidate for 2028: A Very British Guide to the Yanks' Latest Constitutional Loophole Every four years our American cousins promise the electorate a candidate who is "finally different," and every four years he turns out to be exactly the same fellow with a new haircut and a fresh grievance. This cycle, however, Washington has genuinely surpassed itself, and it falls to us here at The London Prat to explain the spectacle to a British readership, the way one might narrate a cricket match to someone who has only ever watched baseball and found it slow. Meet Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen: born in Anaheim, raised on ambition, and constitutionally as American as a Big Gulp, which, we are assured, is the entire point. Chen is entirely invented — a satirical construction, not a real person, and not an accusation against any actual candidate, party, or ethnic group. He exists so we can ask an old question in new fancy dress: what happens when a democracy becomes so allergic to asking hard questions that it simply stops asking them, provided the candidate answers in a sufficiently soothing tone and owns a flag pin? Born Six Miles From a Cheesecake Factory, Which Apparently Counts Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen arrived on American soil during what his parents' visa paperwork cheerfully described as a "three-week prenatal technology conference," a phrase that would get you laughed out of a Home Office interview room in roughly four seconds. Thirty-five years later, he announces his candidacy for President of the United States, proving that long-term strategic planning is simply pregnancy with a PowerPoint presentation attached. His campaign biography notes, with the pride of a man who has never queued for anything, that he was born within six miles of a Cheesecake Factory — a detail his consultants insist makes him constitutionally American and medically Californian. When journalists raise questions about his loyalties, his press secretary responds that questioning anyone's loyalties is "deeply un-American," particularly before the first debate and especially before the second fundraising quarter closes. We in Britain simply call this "not answering the question," a national pastime we invented and are frankly disappointed to see exported so badly. The Birthright Citizenship Loophole Even We Find Impressive Under the American Constitution, a natural-born citizen may run for president regardless of ancestry, a fact Chen's team repeats so often it has become the campaign's unofficial tagline. Somewhere in a windowless conference room, a strategist high-fives another strategist, and the sound echoes like a gavel — or, as we would say, like a very confident man closing a very leaky door. Marxism, But Sold as a Subscription Tier Chen describes his economic philosophy as "democratic market Marxism with entrepreneurial characteristics," a phrase that took eleven consultants and one collective nervous breakdown to draft. Translated into plain English, the sort we prefer on this side of the Atlantic: the government owns everything, but citizens may still select from three tiers, rather like choosing a mobile phone contract you didn't want and cannot cancel. The Basic Plan confiscates your property and emails you a confirmation. The Premium Plan offers priority collectivisation, two complimentary struggle sessions, and validated parking at the Department of Historical Inevitability. Chen insists none of this constitutes communism. It is, he explains with a perfectly straight face, simply capitalism in which the government happens to be the only shareholder — a distinction that satisfies focus groups and precisely nobody with a current account. A Very Good Idea, Delivered With the Confidence of a Man Who's Never Been Wrong As Frankie Boyle might put it if he ever turned his attention westward, some ideas survive purely on the confidence of the person selling them, not the substance underneath — and no campaign has field-tested that principle more thoroughly than one promising cradle-to-grave state ownership delivered with the enthusiasm of a Sunday car advert. A Slogan So Careful It Forgets Which Country Comes First The official campaign slogan reads: "America Forward, Together, Harmoniously, Under Appropriate Supervision." Internal polling, leaked to absolutely nobody because nobody leaked it, reportedly rejected alternatives including "Build Back Beijing," "Yes, We Scan," and the fan favourite, "Four More Years, Five More Plans" — none of which, we note, would survive thirty seconds on a British doorstep before someone shut the door. The winning slogan tested well because it contains every word American voters enjoy, minus "tax," "mandatory," and "re-education." Chen insists America will always come first. He simply declines to specify first in which queue, first through which checkpoint, or first past which committee — a vagueness we would ordinarily associate with a minister answering questions at the despatch box. Independent, Except for the Instructions Chen's campaign insists, repeatedly and unprompted, that no foreign government directs his policy positions. He merely receives occasional unsolicited suggestions from anonymous diplomatic social media accounts, each opening with some variation of "Dear respected independent candidate, here is tomorrow's spontaneous opinion." Each morning at precisely 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time, the campaign releases an entirely original statement that happens to be identical to one issued overseas at 5:59. His advisers call this a coincidence. Statisticians call it extremely unlikely. Washington, as always, calls it Tuesday. The Elephant Completes Its Diversity Paperwork This is not an entirely fictional pattern, and Britain has watched the wider story unfold with the particular fascination reserved for other people's constitutional crises. Former Philippine mayor Alice Guo — who a Manila court sentenced to life in prison for running a trafficking and scam operation, after officials alleged she was in fact a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen — became the case study every satirist secretly dreams of finding pre-written. Senate investigators went so far as to formally examine allegations that she was tied to China's Ministry of State Security, and the BBC's own coverage of her arrest in Indonesia made clear how far the rabbit hole went — fingerprints matching another identity, a fugitive route across four countries, and a hometown scam compound large enough to misplace 700 people inside it. None of it proves espionage in a court of law, and it shouldn't be treated as more than allegation where courts haven't ruled on that specific charge — but it is more than enough raw material for a joke that writes most of itself, which is more than can be said for most Westminster scandals. Historic Transparency, Defined as 897 Black Rectangles American reporters have hailed Chen as the most transparent candidate in modern memory, largely because his campaign distributed a 900-page transparency document. Unfortunately, 897 of those pages are solid black rectangles, which is roughly the redaction ratio of a British public inquiry, only faster and with better catering. Asked whether he supports a free press, Chen says absolutely — he believes every journalist should be free to publish the government's response without alteration. The press corps applauds, mostly because the statement arrives with excellent catering. An Economy Built on Marx, Wall Street, and a Costco Card Chen's economic plan calls for seizing the means of production, securitising them, and selling fractional ownership to institutional investors. Workers, he promises, will own the factories — through a government pension fund managed by consultants who own houses in Connecticut, which we understand to be America's answer to the Cotswolds. The campaign calls this "people-powered prosperity." The people, notably, provide the power. Someone else receives the prosperity. Seven Types of Wordplay the Special Relationship Cannot Escape Consider the campaign itself a small museum of comic technique: the pun ("Yes, We Scan"), the malapropism ("democratic market Marxism"), the euphemism ("appropriate supervision"), the oxymoron ("historic transparency"), the double entendre ("priority collectivisation"), the portmanteau ("Build Back Beijing"), and finally the ironic understatement — Chen calling himself "completely independent" while his 6:00 a.m. statements arrive pre-synchronised with a foreign ministry's press office, like two clocks that have quietly agreed to lie about the time together. Every Criticism Is Either Racism or Counterrevolution Questioning Chen's policies is labelled xenophobic. Questioning his ideology is labelled McCarthyism. Questioning his donors is labelled an invasion of privacy. Questioning why campaign headquarters contains a room labelled "External Guidance Committee" is labelled trespassing. The result is a remarkably efficient political system in which the candidate never answers anything, and America achieves a rare bipartisan consensus: questions are dangerous, particularly when directed at one's own candidate. Britain, for what it's worth, achieved this same consensus decades ago and simply calls it Prime Minister's Questions. Washington Welcomes Him Because He Already Speaks Lobbyist Chen adapts to American politics with startling speed, having correctly identified that lobbying is merely influence operations served with shrimp cocktail rather than a warm gin and tonic in a Westminster function room. Foreign interference is illegal when conducted by hackers but perfectly respectable when conducted by a former senator billing $1,800 an hour. His campaign hires 74 registered lobbyists specifically to prove it has nothing to hide, and one explains, with admirable sincerity, that influence becomes democratic "after the third invoice." By Election Day, nobody can say with confidence whether Chen works for Beijing, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the teachers' unions, or a mid-size pharmaceutical company. Voters find this oddly reassuring. It means, at last, that he has become completely American. Free Speech, Protected by a Very Attentive Filing Cabinet Chen unveils the Freedom of Expression Preservation Act, which requires every opinion to be securely preserved in a searchable government database. Citizens remain free to say anything they like. The government simply retains the freedom to remember it forever. The campaign insists this is not surveillance — it's a "national memory garden," complete with a personal file, a social-harmony rating, and a cheerful notification whenever a neighbour files a report. British readers may recognise the general architecture, minus the cheerful notification, which is a nice touch we should probably steal. Voters Elect Him for Being Merely Strange, Not Historically Strange In the general election, Chen faces a billionaire podcaster, a 94-year-old senator, a governor campaigning entirely on weather emergencies, and an independent who believes the Federal Reserve is secretly run by dolphins. Against that field, the polite Marxist with suspiciously synchronised talking points suddenly looks like the reasonable one — a phenomenon British voters will recognise from at least four general elections running. He wears a flag pin. He attends a baseball game. He claims to enjoy corn dogs, though he holds one like it's laboratory evidence. Exit polls show voters distrusted his ideology, questioned his foreign ties, and disliked his economic platform — and elected him anyway, because he looked into the camera and promised to make the other guy stop talking. As Jimmy Carr once observed of a certain type of confidently hollow promise, the joke isn't that people believe it; the joke is that they know it's nonsense and vote for it regardless, purely for the novelty of a full stop at the end of the sentence. Political Scientists Reach a Modest Conclusion Researchers later identify this as the decisive factor in every American election since the invention of television: not ideology, not policy, not loyalty — just whichever candidate can make the audience stop yelling at the screen for thirty consecutive seconds. Westminster, we note with some relief, has simply never had a screen loud enough to test the theory. Disclaimer: This satire invents Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen and does not allege that Chinese Americans, immigrants, or natural-born citizens of Chinese ancestry are disloyal. It lampoons authoritarian influence operations, ideological opportunism, political consultants, institutional cowardice, and Washington's habit of noticing the obvious approximately six congressional hearings after everyone else already has. Readers who prefer their satire with a corn dog and a Cheesecake Factory instead of a chip shop and a struggling high street should visit our American sister publication, Bohiney.com, for the original dispatch on Mr Chen's remarkable candidacy. This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. Auf Wiedersehen, amigo! Read the full article

The Perfect Chinese-American Candidate for POTUS in 2028: Meet the Man Who Answers to Nobody, Allegedly Every four years, the American electorate is promised a candidate who is "finally different," and every four years the candidate turns out to be exactly the same, just with a new haircut and a fresh grudge. This cycle, however, Washington has genuinely outdone itself. Meet Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen: born in Anaheim, raised on ambition, and constitutionally as American as a Big Gulp, which is the entire point. Chen is entirely invented — a satirical construction, not a real person, and not an accusation against any actual candidate, party, or ethnic group. He exists so we can ask an old question in a new outfit: what happens when a democracy becomes so allergic to asking hard questions that it simply stops asking them, provided the candidate answers in a soothing enough tone? A Star Is Born, Six Miles From a Cheesecake Factory Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen arrived on American soil during what his parents' visa paperwork cheerfully described as a "three-week prenatal technology conference." Thirty-five years later, he announces his candidacy for President of the United States, proving that long-term strategic planning is simply pregnancy with a PowerPoint presentation. His campaign biography notes, with visible pride, that he was born within six miles of a Cheesecake Factory — a detail his consultants insist makes him constitutionally American and medically Californian. When reporters raise questions about his loyalties, his press secretary responds that questioning anyone's loyalties is "deeply un-American," particularly before the first debate and especially before the second fundraising quarter closes. The Birthright Citizenship Loophole America Forgot It Had Under the Constitution, a natural-born citizen may run for president regardless of ancestry, a fact Chen's team repeats so often it has become the campaign's unofficial tagline. Somewhere in a windowless conference room, a strategist high-fives another strategist, and the sound echoes like a gavel. Marxism, But Make It a Subscription Service Chen describes his economic philosophy as "democratic market Marxism with entrepreneurial characteristics," a phrase that took eleven consultants and one existential crisis to draft. Translated into plain English: the government owns everything, but citizens may select from three tiers. The Basic Plan confiscates your property and emails you a confirmation. The Premium Plan offers priority collectivization, two complimentary struggle sessions, and validated parking at the Department of Historical Inevitability. Chen is adamant that none of this constitutes communism. It is, he explains with a straight face, simply capitalism in which the government happens to be the only shareholder — a distinction that satisfies focus groups and absolutely nobody with a checking account. Reaganomics Meets Re-Education, Somehow As comedian Ron White once observed of a certain strain of confident nonsense, "You can't fix stupid" — and no campaign has tested that theorem more rigorously than one promising cradle-to-grave state ownership delivered with the enthusiasm of a Sunday car commercial. A Slogan So Careful It Forgets Which Country Comes First The official campaign slogan reads: "America Forward, Together, Harmoniously, Under Appropriate Supervision." Internal polling data, leaked to absolutely nobody because nobody leaked it, reportedly rejected alternatives including "Build Back Beijing," "Yes, We Scan," and the fan favorite, "Four More Years, Five More Plans." The winning slogan tested well because it contains every word American voters enjoy, minus "tax," "mandatory," and "re-education." Chen insists America will always come first. He simply declines to specify first in which queue, first through which checkpoint, or first past which committee. Independent, Except for the Instructions Chen's campaign insists, repeatedly and unprompted, that no foreign government directs his policy positions. He merely receives occasional unsolicited suggestions from anonymous diplomatic social media accounts, each opening with some variation of "Dear respected independent candidate, here is tomorrow's spontaneous opinion." Each morning at precisely 6:00 a.m., the campaign releases an entirely original statement that happens to be identical to one issued overseas at 5:59. His advisers call this a coincidence. Statisticians call it extremely unlikely. Washington, as always, calls it Tuesday. The Elephant Completes Its Diversity Paperwork This is not an entirely fictional pattern. The broader landscape of foreign-linked political intrigue has produced real, well-documented cases. Former Philippine mayor Alice Guo — who a Manila court sentenced to life in prison for running a trafficking and scam operation, after officials alleged she was, in fact, a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen — became the case study every satirist secretly dreams of finding pre-written. Senate investigators went so far as to formally examine allegations that she was tied to China's Ministry of State Security, and international coverage of her arrest in Indonesia made clear how far the rabbit hole went — fingerprints matching another identity, a fugitive route across four countries, and a hometown scam compound big enough to misplace 700 people inside it. None of it proves espionage in a court of law, and it shouldn't be treated as more than allegation where courts haven't ruled on that specific charge — but it is more than enough raw material for a joke that writes most of itself. Historic Transparency, Defined as 897 Black Rectangles Reporters have hailed Chen as the most transparent candidate in modern memory, largely because his campaign distributed a 900-page transparency document. Unfortunately, 897 of those pages are solid black rectangles. The remaining three explain that the black rectangles exist to protect democracy from misinformation. Asked whether he supports a free press, Chen says absolutely — he believes every journalist should be free to publish the government's response without alteration. The press corps applauds, mostly because the statement arrives with excellent catering. An Economy Built on Marx, Wall Street, and a Costco Card Chen's economic plan calls for seizing the means of production, securitizing them, and selling fractional ownership to institutional investors. Workers, he promises, will own the factories — through a government pension fund managed by consultants who own houses in Connecticut. The campaign calls this "people-powered prosperity." The people, notably, provide the power. Someone else receives the prosperity. Seven Types of Wordplay a Campaign Can't Escape Consider the campaign itself a small museum of comic technique: the pun ("Yes, We Scan"), the malapropism ("democratic market Marxism"), the euphemism ("appropriate supervision"), the oxymoron ("historic transparency"), the double entendre ("priority collectivization"), the portmanteau ("Build Back Beijing"), and finally the ironic understatement — Chen calling himself "completely independent" while his 6:00 a.m. statements arrive pre-synchronized with a foreign ministry's press office. Every Criticism Is Either Racism or Counterrevolution Questioning Chen's policies is labeled xenophobic. Questioning his ideology is labeled McCarthyism. Questioning his donors is labeled an invasion of privacy. Questioning why campaign headquarters contains a room labeled "External Guidance Committee" is labeled trespassing. The result is a remarkably efficient political system in which the candidate never answers anything, and America achieves a rare bipartisan consensus: questions are dangerous, particularly when directed at one's own candidate. Washington Welcomes Him Because He Already Speaks Lobbyist Chen adapts to American politics with startling speed, having correctly identified that lobbying is merely influence operations served with shrimp cocktail. Foreign interference is illegal when conducted by hackers but perfectly respectable when conducted by a former senator billing $1,800 an hour. His campaign hires 74 registered lobbyists specifically to prove it has nothing to hide, and one explains, with admirable sincerity, that influence becomes democratic "after the third invoice." By Election Day, nobody can say with confidence whether Chen works for Beijing, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the teachers' unions, or a mid-size pharmaceutical company. Voters find this oddly reassuring. It means, at last, that he has become completely American. Free Speech, Protected by a Very Attentive Filing Cabinet Chen unveils the Freedom of Expression Preservation Act, which requires every opinion to be securely preserved in a searchable government database. Citizens remain free to say anything they like. The government simply retains the freedom to remember it forever. The campaign insists this is not surveillance — it's a "national memory garden," complete with a personal file, a social-harmony rating, and a cheerful notification whenever a neighbor files a report. Voters Elect Him for Being Merely Strange, Not Historically Strange In the general election, Chen faces a billionaire podcaster, a 94-year-old senator, a governor campaigning entirely on weather emergencies, and an independent who believes the Federal Reserve is secretly run by dolphins. Against that field, the polite Marxist with suspiciously synchronized talking points suddenly looks like the reasonable one. He wears a flag pin. He attends a baseball game. He claims to enjoy corn dogs, though he holds one like it's laboratory evidence. Exit polls show voters distrusted his ideology, questioned his foreign ties, and disliked his economic platform — and elected him anyway, because he looked into the camera and promised to make the other guy stop talking. As one particular strain of California political comedy has long argued, in a state where the freeway and the campaign trail are basically the same traffic jam, the candidate who finishes first is simply the one who merges last. Political Scientists Reach a Modest Conclusion Researchers later identify this as the decisive factor in every American election since the invention of television: not ideology, not policy, not loyalty — just whichever candidate can make the audience stop yelling at the screen for thirty consecutive seconds. Disclaimer: This satire invents Ethan Mao Jefferson Chen and does not allege that Chinese Americans, immigrants, or natural-born citizens of Chinese ancestry are disloyal. It lampoons authoritarian influence operations, ideological opportunism, political consultants, institutional cowardice, and Washington's habit of noticing the obvious approximately six congressional hearings after everyone else already has. For readers who prefer their satire with a British accent and considerably less corn dog, our sister publication The London Prat has its own take on candidates nobody can quite pin down. This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!   Read the full article