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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 10/04/2007 : 20:18:51
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I just got this email forward from a friend:
"A moment I've been dreading. George (Vice President George H.W. Bush)
brought his ne'er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the
kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida (future Gov. Jeb Bush
). The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This
so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll
call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a
contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work."
-- Ronald Reagan in his recently published diaries, May 17, 1986 |
Of course my first thought was Is this true? (along with a desperate hope that it was.) Alas, things too good to be true so often are:
http://snopes.com/politics/satire/Kinsley.asp
*sigh* I just hate it when my fellow liberals are intellectually lazy spreaders of misinformation. Makes the rest of us look bad.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2007 : 22:56:36 [Permalink]
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Since I can't read more than the beginning of the article, I don't know if it were written according to the ancient rules of honorable satire. But I'll say this: That writer was good. I'm jealous.
It was a joke, Marf, and a very funny one. It wasn't a deliberate political "dirty trick" of the Karl Rove type. Was it "responsible" humor? I can't tell from the little I can read whether or not it included overt clues that it was a spoof. I don't think Jonathan Swift's infamous "A Modest Proposal" did. I see no indication that the spoof was actually inserted into the Reagan diaries, only claimed to be part of them.
My own feeling is that artists, comedians, satirists, and especially parodists are special magical creatures that should not be held to the same mundane rules as mortal people. We They should be allowed to run free, to rape, slaughter and lie their asses off with impunity.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 10/05/2007 01:44:24 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 10/05/2007 : 02:22:45 [Permalink]
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Agreein' with 'mooner. It's this sort of thing that keeps the rest of us alert, and if our bullshit detectors lack a sublty circuit, we should install one.
Good one, sez I! But it shoulda been saved for April 1.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Coelacanth
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
50 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2007 : 08:58:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
It's this sort of thing that keeps the rest of us alert, and if our bullshit detectors lack a sublty circuit, we should install one.
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Yes, unfortunately we have to keep that detector updates and running at 100% all the time. Sure things may fall through the filter at times, but it doesn't do us as much harm as some others might. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2007 : 09:08:57 [Permalink]
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Since I can't read more than the beginning of the article, I don't know if it were written according to the ancient rules of honorable satire. But I'll say this: That writer was good. I'm jealous.
It was a joke, Marf, and a very funny one. It wasn't a deliberate political "dirty trick" of the Karl Rove type. Was it "responsible" humor? I can't tell from the little I can read whether or not it included overt clues that it was a spoof. I don't think Jonathan Swift's infamous "A Modest Proposal" did. I see no indication that the spoof was actually inserted into the Reagan diaries, only claimed to be part of them.
My own feeling is that artists, comedians, satirists, and especially parodists are special magical creatures that should not be held to the same mundane rules as mortal people. We They should be allowed to run free, to rape, slaughter and lie their asses off with impunity. |
Mooner, I didn't criticize the satirist. I, too, think the joke is hilarious and very well written. I was criticizing my friends who thought it was real and sent it to others, presenting it as if it were real, because they are too lazy to look it up and they wanted it to be true. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2007 : 14:27:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Since I can't read more than the beginning of the article, I don't know if it were written according to the ancient rules of honorable satire. But I'll say this: That writer was good. I'm jealous.
It was a joke, Marf, and a very funny one. It wasn't a deliberate political "dirty trick" of the Karl Rove type. Was it "responsible" humor? I can't tell from the little I can read whether or not it included overt clues that it was a spoof. I don't think Jonathan Swift's infamous "A Modest Proposal" did. I see no indication that the spoof was actually inserted into the Reagan diaries, only claimed to be part of them.
My own feeling is that artists, comedians, satirists, and especially parodists are special magical creatures that should not be held to the same mundane rules as mortal people. We They should be allowed to run free, to rape, slaughter and lie their asses off with impunity. |
Mooner, I didn't criticize the satirist. I, too, think the joke is hilarious and very well written. I was criticizing my friends who thought it was real and sent it to others, presenting it as if it were real, because they are too lazy to look it up and they wanted it to be true.
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D'oh! Thanks for clarifying that.
From the mid-to-late 1960's, I remember uncountable spoofs that originated in the fevered minds of writers such as those of the Berkeley Barb, which were repeated endlessly as urban legends. (One quick example was the claim that the tobacco companies had already registered names for their upcoming marijuana products. "Acapulco Gold" for instance, was supposed to be a trademark of the American Tobacco Company. The list of names grew longer as people added to it.) Like many folks today, the hippies were in large measure credophiles. They'd spread any juicy rumor they heard, with not checking of facts.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Fake Entry in Reagan Diaries About Dubya
