Jonesboro, Arkansas

Jonesboro is a city located in Craighead County, Arkansas. The city is located on the North American continent, the birthplace of many individuals of international renown. Jonesboro is the county seat and the largest city in the north-northwestern eastern section of the southwestern quadrant of central northeastern Arkansas. It is the fifth most populous city in the state when city-dwelling farm animals and jailed yankees are counted as part of the population. Jonesboro is the home to Arkansas State University and is a regional center for manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, education, trade, drinking in secret, denying reality, and talking about how lucky you are that you don't live in Trumann. Jonesboro has over seventy-five churches earning it the nickname, "Fort God."

The official colors of Jonesboro are "industrial mint green", "irate Bible-thumper red", and "asphyxiated Liberal blue".

Jonesboro's sister city is Shitterton, Dorset, England. Geological and archaeological evidence suggests the two were conjoined at birth.

History

Jonesboro was named after Mr. Jones, the character in Bob Dylan's dark and menacing 1966 song "Ballad of a Thin Man." The song's lyrics have Mr. Jones facing a wild, nonsensical, and hallucinatory, circus-like or carnival-like world and the character is portrayed as a clueless poser who cannot deal with it all. Indeed, as the song suggests, "something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

The city was selected as the county seat in 1864. However, difficulties in travel necessitated a second county seat in the eastern half of the county. The county seat was divided, with one buttock being in Jonesboro and the other buttock in Lake City. Despite this division, both cheeks have assholes.

The Cotton Belt Railroad established a line that reached Jonesboro in 1881. Although passenger trains no longer serve Jonesboro because of the local perception that trains are a "socialist" mode of transport that infringes upon car culture and undermines the profits of the local used car industry, the city is graced by 60 freight trains per day. The Disunion Pacific Railroad carries an outstanding array of iron scrap, while the Burlington Directionless Railroad enjoys a slightly classier clientele that ships nuclear waste, chemical sludge, biohazards, and political prisoners from Minnesota and Vermont. A favored past-time of Arkansas State University students and faculty is to park their cars on Caraway Road in order to admire the passing trains and their interesting variety of wares.

Geography

Jonesboro reposes at the serene confluence of County Ditch 7 and an unnamed concrete gutter. The rise of these two noble watercourses at the crest of the ridge is one of nature's wonders, and its beauty keeps local residents glued to televised WWF matches.

Crowley's Ridge was named after Aleister Crowley, patron saint of Jonesboro's Oldest Satanic Cult.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.2 km² (2.0 mi²). 8.3 km² (4.6 mi²) of it is land and -0.9 km² (-0.4 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 0.45% water. The inhabitants, by contrast, are 95% water. In a cruel twist of fate the water in Jonesboro is only 45% water, and so the good people of the city claim they must drink Stroh's and Pabst Blue Ribbon in order to stay hydrated.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 55,515 people, 22,219 households, and 14,353 families residing in the city. The population density was 269.1/km² (697.1/mi²). There were 24,263 housing units at an average density of 117.6/km² (304.7/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 85.37% White, 11.27% Black or African American, 0.32% Native American, 0.83% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 1.05% from other races, and 1.13% from two or more races. 2.34% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 22,219 households out of which 30.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.9% were married couples living together, 12.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.4% were non-families. There are 878 unmarried partner households: 776 heterosexual, 50 same-sex male, and 52 same-sex female households. 27.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.93.

Four types of reader live in the city of Jonesboro. The first of these is the Careful Reader. The reader of this sort (which numbers about...well, two) will notice that the above two paragraphs are written in the past tense. The second type of reader residing in Jonesboro is the Presumptuous Reader. This individual will likely infer that use of the past tense in the above two paragraphs indicates reliance upon year 2000 census statistics. The third type of reader in Jonesboro is the Optimistic Reader. This type of reader will hope that use of the past tense in the above two paragraphs indicates that the city has been annihilated by a series of industrial explosions or perhaps another Church War such as the one that graced the city during the 1930s. And the fourth type of reader in Jonesboro enjoys majority status: they are the Non-Reader. This latter category includes all Jonesboro Sun subscription holders, a segment of the population that does not have the ability to distinguish the past tense from a full-page Firestone Tire advertisement.

Cults

Jonesboro proudly hosts a large array of cults endemic to the Christianist malady. The largest cults in the city are the Southern Baptist Cult and The Cult of Christ. These two sects are vehemently opposed to one another. It is hoped by the reflective, thinking populace of the community that the members of these two cults will simply kill one another off. The sooner the better...we're ready to be able to dance and drink our beers in peace.

Self-genocide of the Baptists began during the Jonesboro Church Wars of the early 1930s, when various sects within the Southern Baptist Cult began picking each other off in a dispute, each side claiming to have a fatter, more prolific womanizer for a preacher (at press time, 75 years later, the count on the womanizing issue is still continuing).

The Southern Baptist Cult (SBC) is a United States-based cooperative ministry agency organizing orgies, binge-drinking, dancing, elevator sex, and inter-church warfare in Baptist houses of worship around the world. Their mission is to ensure that these activities take place within churches rather than in the community at large. The SBC actively promotes evangelism, an organized form of narcissism that church officials encourage among the brainwashed congregation in order to increase quarterly profits and to discourage dissenting political views that may not be favorable to the SBC's power structure.

Alcohol

Jonesboro is in a dry county, meaning that only Baptists are allowed to drink. If you want to buy booze, you can go north, to Greene County, where the thriving metropolis of Paragould, Arkansas has many bars. Or, you can go south, to Poinsett County, where pig urine is fermented, bottled, and sold to yankee tourists.

Critical Reaction

The critical response toward Jonesboro during its 150-year history has ranged from stolid catatonia to impassioned derision. Most critics agree that the town is unremarkable. Hamlet Crossroads, editor-in-chief of Hometown America states, "Had Jonesboro's entry onto the American lanscape been accompanied by a bartender and a penguin, it at least might have managed a legacy on the joke circuit."

D-List Celebrity Arrests

In order to raise the city's national profile, Jonesboro is actively promoting itself among D-List celebrities as a preferred medium-sized city in which to get arrested. Currently this campaign focuses on alcohol-related arrests, but city officials stress that other violations by D-List celebrities are welcome opportunities for prosecution. Austin Winkler (arrested for DUI on December 21, 2007) of the band Hinder, and Mike Wessel (arrested July 5, 2010) of Ultimate Fighting Championships, are two D-List celebrities who have participated in this public relations campaign. However, some commentators have noted that Wessel is more properly termed an E-List celebrity. Despite such cynical estimation of Wessel, his arrest was noticed by the Associated Press (AP) and other national media outlets, allowing Jonesboro to achieve an Internet news trending distinction of 5,678,108 on that particular day.

Beginning in 2010, the City of Jonesboro will coordinate D-List Celebrity Arrest Initiatives jointly with the entertainment committee of the Craighead County Fairgrounds.

Other facts

• Craighead County is a dry county because Baptists prefer to drink in private clubs.

• Jonesboro was home to Hattie Caraway, the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, and yet today the city does not have even one strip club.

• Jonesboro has more sheet metal churches with plywood steeples than does any other city or town in the United States.

• Jonesboro is the asshole of the world. All the little places around it--like Bono, Trumann, Bay, and Brookland--are the turds.

• Jonesboro is located on the North American continent, the birthplace of many individuals of international renown.

• MBC Holdings is currently buying the Jonesboro sewer system in order to partition it into sections intended to be rented by shop merchants. Once completed, it will rival the bazaar of Istanbul for the title of the world's largest underground shopping arena.

• Numerous Country and Western singers have declared "We love ya', Jonesboro!" And numerous residents have believed them.

External links

• The Jonesboro Total Eclipse, the media conglomerate rag that purports to serve Northeast Arkansas through its efforts to place the nation's formerly locally-owned news sources under the control of a few privileged corporate media assembly lines.