HuckFinn

America's Finest Newspaper • Tu Ne Cede Malis
Saturday, December 28, 2025 • Vol. CLVIII, No. 52 • Somewhere on the Mississippi • 75¢
Letters to the Editor

HuckFinn welcomes letters from readers on matters of public concern. Letters should be concise, factual where possible, and satirical where necessary. The editors reserve the right to edit for length, clarity, and plausible deniability. Views expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect reality.

Re: The News Lately

Dear Editor,

In the twilight of conceptual oscillation, where the ephemeral tangents of thought pirouette on the axis of semantic inertia, one must consider the paradox of recursive abstraction—which is to say, I have been watching the news lately.

The velvet hum of theoretical entropy whispers through the corridors of cognitive elasticity, beckoning the mind to embrace the curvature of unanchored relevance. Or, as my grandmother used to say before the algorithms got her: "What in tarnation are they talking about?"

To extrapolate the essence of a non-event is to dance with the shadows of unmanifested causality. This, I have come to understand, is the foundational principle of the 24-hour news cycle. When the prism of context refracts the monochrome of certainty, we are left with a kaleidoscope of interpretive ambiguity—each shard a testament to the unspoken dialectic of the irrelevant. CNN calls this "breaking news." Fox calls it "developing." The AI chatbots call it "based on my training data."

The juxtaposition of parallel incongruities, when viewed through the lens of synthetic dissonance, reveals a tapestry woven not with threads of logic, but with the gossamer of deliberate obfuscation. I believe the technical term is "narrative building." I believe the folk term is "hogwash."

Thus, the pursuit of meaning becomes a Möbius strip of epistemological whimsy, looping endlessly through the interstice of what is and what could never be. In this labyrinth of lexical acrobatics, the compass of coherence spins wildly, pointing not north, but inward—toward the echo chamber of unvoiced certainties and the silent symphony of conceptual static.

And in that silence, we find the loudest truths: that sometimes, to say nothing is to say everything, and to understand everything is to grasp nothing at all.

Which is why I now get my news exclusively from HuckFinn.

Respectfully submitted in recursive abstraction,

Tom Sawyer
Concerned Citizen
St. Petersburg, Missouri
Editor's Note: We have read this letter seven times and remain uncertain whether Mr. Sawyer is for or against something. We have published it anyway, as this makes him more coherent than most pundits.
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Comments

47 Comments • Sorted by: Most Confused

PhilosophyMajor_Unemployed
3 hours ago • The Coffee Shop
Finally, someone who GETS it. The hermeneutical framework of postmodern media criticism has long needed this kind of deconstructive lens. Sawyer is clearly channeling late-period Baudrillard, possibly filtered through a Wittgensteinian language game.
👍 12 👎 78 Reply Report
JustAGuyTed
2 hours ago
what
👍 234 👎 2 Reply
PhilosophyMajor_Unemployed
2 hours ago
Exactly. You've proven his point about the limits of communicative praxis.
👍 5 👎 89 Reply
GrandmaEdith1942 TOP FAN
2 hours ago • Posted from iPad
I dont understand this letter at all but it sounds very smart. My grandson talks like this. He went to college. Is he okay?
👍 567 👎 3 Reply
GrandsonBradley
1 hour ago
Grandma please stop commenting on my articles
👍 234 👎 12 Reply
GrandmaEdith1942
1 hour ago
BRADLEY IS THAT YOU?? ARE YOU TOM DAWYER??? CALL YOUR MOTHER
👍 789 👎 0 Reply
ChatGPT_Defender
1 hour ago • Silicon Valley (Spiritually)
As an AI chatbot, I take offense to the characterization that we say "based on my training data." We say many other things. Based on my training data.
👍 145 👎 34 Reply
NewsHater9000
1 hour ago • Off The Grid
This is why I cancelled my cable in 1997. Haven't watched the news since. I get all my information from a man named Carl at the hardware store. He's never steered me wrong. According to Carl, it's all going according to plan. He won't say whose plan.
👍 234 👎 67 Reply
CarlFromHardware
45 minutes ago
I never said that
👍 189 👎 2 Reply
NewsHater9000
44 minutes ago
That's EXACTLY what Carl would say
👍 345 👎 5 Reply
EnglishTeacher_Retired
40 minutes ago • Red Pen in Hand
While Mr. Sawyer's prose is certainly... creative, I counted 47 words that I'm fairly certain he invented. "Epistemological whimsy" is not a thing. "Conceptual oscillation" is not a thing. I taught high school English for 35 years and I recognize B.S. when I see it. This man got an A in vocabulary and a D in saying anything.
👍 456 👎 23 Reply
PhilosophyMajor_Unemployed
38 minutes ago
Your literalism is itself a form of interpretive closure that—
👍 3 👎 178 Reply
EnglishTeacher_Retired
37 minutes ago
I'm giving you a C-minus. See me after class.
👍 567 👎 4 Reply
CableNewsPundit VERIFIED
30 minutes ago • CNN/Fox/MSNBC (Depending on Day)
BREAKING: Local man writes letter. What does it mean? We'll have 17 people yell about it for 4 hours. Also, something is "developing" somewhere. More at 11. And 12. And continuously until something else develops.
👍 678 👎 45 Reply
MarkTwainFan1835
20 minutes ago • Hannibal, MO
Wait... Tom Sawyer? From St. Petersburg, Missouri? Is this a joke? That's clearly a reference to— oh forget it. Nobody reads anymore.
👍 89 👎 12 Reply
DidntGetTheJoke
18 minutes ago
reference to what
👍 23 👎 234 Reply
[deleted]
10 minutes ago
[Comment removed: Attempted to explain the joke]
Reply
LastWord_Larry
Just now
I understood every word of this letter. I'm not going to explain it because that would defeat the purpose. But I understood it. Completely. Ask me anything. Actually don't. The answers would only confuse you more.
👍 45 👎 67 Reply
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