So I am in Saltillo, Mexico at the moment, not sleeping. I am on the dreaded Facebook, and I come across a reference to this:
More Obamacare Haters duped by satire
Past the implant disguised as squiggly.
This is an article by some naughty writers at the National Report
Now I don't know anything about this site, it looks like a format rip off of the no union, no pay for your work website the Huffingpuff Roast, mixed with satire a la Garlic. The article itself was pretty outlandish and funny.
It starts out with
The “Obamacare” RFID chips are currently being given a test run on the proud and patriotic citizens of Hanna, Wyoming.
Over the last two weeks a special piece of legislation has been passed making it mandatory for anyone who receives welfare, or any other form of government assistance to be implanted with these new identification chips.
- See more at: http://nationalreport.net/...
and
These fringe apocalyptic churches believe Obama to be the anti-Christ and claim the RFID chip is the Mark Of The Beast written about in their Book Of Revelations. They site the RFID chip’s supposed serial number of 131618 as corresponding with Revelations 13:16-18. - See more at: http://nationalreport.net/...
ending with:
This journalist embraces the new change, and even got her very own RFID chip before heading back to the National Report’s home offices. - See more at: http://nationalreport.net/...
This wan't really worth my time to report on in the hallowed halls of orange ivy, but then I saw this:
In the Wyoming Star-Tribune
The paper has an article exploring the effect that this satirical non-story has had on the community of Hanna, Wyoming. Good enough.
I will give the writer of the Star-Tribune writer half credit. He did a good job showing how easy it is to rile up Tea Partiers. But then he lays down this:
The National Report's little Wyoming joke stopped being funny when the publication couldn't produce satire clever enough so that readers could distinguish fact from exaggerated fiction. Truly, that's the hard thing about satire: It has to be so clever, so outlandish, so obvious that everyone understands it's bogus.
I would disagree. The closer satire comes to imitating credible reality, the better it is.
The second half of the Star-Tribune article scolded the National Report for a lack of journalistic responsibility. Tell that to the Harvard and National Lampoons, The Onion, Jesus General, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the Washington Times.
Oh just please.
But the thing that got me hooked was this:
Not so with the National Report. Instead, it merely stopped a small Wyoming town from business. It's not clear how the operators of the National Report chose Hanna to target.
Licking my chops, I dove in and commented.
Dear Mr. Ehrlick,
To quote you:
"It's not clear how the operators of the National Report chose Hanna to target."
I suggest that as a reporter on satirical articles you both add more depth of field to your satire radar, and bone up on geography. Hanna Wyoming was selected because Wyoming is next to Montana, and there is no town named Hanna in Montana. Need I squeegee your satire windshield some more, or might it just be a matter of extracting the Obamacare tracking device implanted in your buttock while you were asleep?
On a grammatical note, I don't think your dear clear headed readers would be as concerned about HOW the National Report chose Hanna, Wyoming (dart board, focus group, satire consultant, federal research grant, eeny meeny miney moe), as WHY they picked Hanna Wyoming. Perchance it was picked because the near-funniness, pop-cultural aspect of the name Hanna, Wyoming might pass over the non satire grasping heads of serious writers like you (and your fine readers) so that the National Report's sophomoric editorial board collectively could snicker so hard at this vision of stories like you wrote about the non story about Obamacare , that the board would have Diet Fresca spewing from all their noses. I do agree with you that to pick on the upstanding citizens of Hanna, Wyoming, and their busy elected officials was very petty and not nice in a wipe that smirk off of your face, young man kind of way.
The National Report got a trifecta with this story. They made fun of a whole town, they duped many thousands of Obama haters into more false reasons to hate Obama, reasons that for the most part will go unquestioned, and they got you to write an article that I have had a lot of fun picking apart. In conclusion, I advise your publisher that he buy you a new copy of The Little, Brown Book, and send some of your copy editors back to middle school.
The above comment was edited twixt its original posting and here, because, well, it needed to be edited. It still has mistakes. Fire away, Federal Grammar Police.
Of course, my grammar and editing sucks too. Note how I completely avoided the use of the semi-colon. Without people like me, Jesus wouldn't have stone throwers to scold.