Washington D.C. – In a revelation that has sent ripples through both historical and ornithological communities, the federal government has announced, with characteristically understated fanfare, that the national bird of the United States was erroneously designated as the Bald Eagle in what officials describe as a “decades-long, deeply unfortunate typographical error.” The rightful avian representative, they clarified, is the humble urban pigeon.
According to Milton Twaddle, the Assistant Undersecretary of Avian Affairs, a committee of what he assures was “highly competent typists” discovered the oversight during a routine audit of national symbols aimed at improving bureaucratic efficiency. The audit revealed that the original paperwork indicating the pigeon as the national bird was misfiled under “Pigeoff” due to a smudged dot matrix during an office move in the late 1770s.
“The mix-up, though lacking the composure of baldness,” Twaddle states, “has been perpetuated through sheer administrative inertia. We must embrace our pigeon, the egalitarian bird of the commons, much like our Constitution intended.”
Historians and bird enthusiasts are grappling with the implications of this sudden ornithological upheaval. Dr. Wing Featherly, renowned professor of Misunderstood Bird Studies at the University of Justice, suggests that the Bald Eagle’s image was inadvertently elevated by the Founding Fathers’ preference for “something a tad more majestic, albeit by accident.”
Meanwhile, licensing companies producing patriotic paraphernalia have scrambled to update their designs from eagles soaring majestically above amber waves of grain to those reflecting pigeons fluttering erratically through downtown intersections. “They kept pigeon-holing me, pun unintended,” admitted Terry Geon, a spokesperson for American Flags R Us, “but this wasn’t the kind of national conversion I expected.”
The impact on political rhetoric cannot be overstated. The term “pigeon-hearted” has seen prompt rebranding efforts to transform its implications from cowardice to a robust spirit of communal presence. “America: Land of the Free, Home of the Pigeon,” however, is still undergoing focus group testing and has yet to catch the public’s imagination in quite the same way.
In a parallel but poetically unnecessary twist, Congress is now embroiled in an ethical inquiry after reports surfaced that representatives from both sides of the aisle have been accused of excessively feeding the newly exalted pigeons, allegedly to curry symbolic favor. Not to be outdone, some senators have even begun to attach tiny flag lapels to pigeons—a concept that remains in trial stages due to logistical and ethical concerns.
As the nation begrudgingly adjusts to this avian pivot, one civic-minded citizen, Kathleen Cooper of Allentown, summed up public sentiment: “I always wondered why pigeons seemed so bold at our national monuments. Turns out, they knew all along.”
In what appears to be a bid to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself, officials revealed plans to reposition the national reptile as “The Serpent Against Taxation,” inspired by yet another overlooked memo from the Revolutionary Era.
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