[ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future

[Jeff Davis]

Satire!?  There's satire going on here!?  I'm shocked.  Shocked I say.
 And confused.  And I protest -- vigorously protest, I say -- any
implication that I should be scorned or laughed at for not noticing
said alleged satire.

I mean, jeez, you've got guys like Limbaugh and O'Reilly, and  New
York Times columnists, most of the political class, Sarah Palin and
Larry "Wide Stance" Craig pumping out satire without even intending or
noticing.  Then we have Mirco, with his funky English (no offense)
from which we are expected to extract the subtle (or not) nuance of
satire.  We live in a world where satire and not-satire intermingle
indistinguishably.  Hell, it's gotten to the point that simple vanilla
forthrightness -- so rare and unexpected -- automatically qualifies as
satire, or could, or should.

I mean I was not born a wise-ass, I had to work at it..  Now everyone
is doing this shit, and they think they're good at it.  Granted,
you've have your "naturals" like Sarah P and Larry "Wide Stance", but
those of us who have labored our entire lives in the trenches of
wiseassery, perfecting our smarminess and disdain, our insensitivity
and pompous self-absorption, must now suffer the cheapening of our
ouvre, by poseurs and other low types flooding the market with
inferior goods.  "Between Iraq and a hard place", "General Betray-us".
 Puleeeese.  Too easy, minimally clever, not original.  Cheap.

Real satire starts with reality, and then puts lipstick on the pig.
Shortcuts, like learning your memetics in a colonic echo chamber
(usually your own), no matter how effective, produce only the
blathering of unschooled ignorance, ie accidental satire.  Monkeys at
the typewriters.

Our salvation lies in a return to strict standards,  beginning with
the basics: a total commitment to cynicism.  Humanity is a plague.
Those that aren't stupid are ugly.  Transhumanism is the only
solution.  The rest must be scheduled for euthanisia.

Best, Jeff Davis

"We call someone insane who does not
   believe as we do to an outrageous extent."
                       Charles McCabe


On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> At 10:42 AM 2/16/2009 -0800, Spike wrote:
>
>> Mr. Gmail has written A Modest Proposal.  I am interested in how many will
>> miss the satirical nature of the essay, as did many in Swift's time.
>
> Half the list? (Let's hope not.)
>
>
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