[CLUE-Talk] CEOnistas

[Kevin Cullis]

U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT--  Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted 
Miles from Mexican Border  -- San Antonio, Texas (Rooters) 

Unwilling to wait for their eventual  indictments, the 10,000 remaining
CEOs 
of public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday, heading for the 
Mexican border, plundering  towns and villages along the way, and
writing 
the entire rampage off as a marketing expense.  "They came into my home, 
made me pay for my own TV, then  double-booked the revenues," said
Rachel 
Sanchez of Las Cruces, just  north of El Paso. "Right in front of my 
daughters."  Calling themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives were 
first spotted last night along the Rio Grande River near Quemado, where 
they bought each of the town's 320 residents by borrowing against
pension 
fund gains. By late this morning, the CEOnistas had arbitrarily inflated 
Quemado's population to 960, and declared a 200  percent profit for the 
fiscal second quarter.  This morning, the outlaws bought the city of
Waco, 
transferred its  underperforming areas to a private partnership, and
sent a 
bill to California for $4.5 billion.  Law enforcement officials and 
disgruntled shareholders riding posse were noticeably frustrated. 
"First of 
all, they're very hard to find because they always stand  behind their 
numbers, and the numbers keep shifting," said posse spokesman Dean
Levitt. 
"And every time we yell 'Stop in the name of the shareholders!', they
refer 
us to investor relations. I've been on  the phone all  damn morning." 
"YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!" 

The pursuers said they have had some success, however, by preying on  a 
common executive  weakness. "Last night we caught about 24 of them by 
disguising one of  our female officers as a CNBC anchor," said U.S.
Border 
Patrol  spokesperson Janet Lewis. "It was like moths to a flame."  Also, 
teams of agents have been using high-powered listening devices  to scan
the 
plains for telltale sounds of the CEOnistas. "Most of the  time we just
hear 
leaves rustling or cattle flicking their tails,"  said Lewis, "but 
occasionally we'll pick up someone saying, 'I was totally out of the
loop on 
that.'" Among former and current CEOs apprehended with this method were 
Computer Associates' Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia's John Rigas, Enron's Ken 
Lay, 
Joseph Nacchio of Qwest, Joseph Berardino of Arthur Andersen, and every 
Global Crossing CEO since 1997. ImClone Systems' Sam Waksal  and Dennis 
Kozlowski of Tyco were not allowed to join the CEOnistas as they have 
already been indicted. So far, about 50 chief executives have been
captured, 
including  Martha Stewart, who was detained south of El Paso where she
had 
cut  through a barbed-wire fence at the Zaragosa border crossing off 
Highway 375.  "She would have gotten away, but she was stopping
motorists to 
ask for marzipan and food coloring so she could make edible snowman
place 
settings, using the cut pieces of wire for the arms," said Border 
Patrol 
officer Jennette Cushing. "We put her in cell No. 7, because the morning
sun 
really adds texture to the stucco walls."   
      While some stragglers are believed to have successfully crossed
into 
Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the CEOnistas have holed themselves  up
at 
the Alamo. "No, not the fort, the car rental place at the airport," she 
said. "They're rotating all the tires on the minivans and accounting for 
each change as a sales event.