Three Good Sarcastic Essays from Somewhat Different Eras.

Sarcasm is a tricky little human device, in speech and human-to-human conversational relations it is really annoying for the most part, but in writing (if done with subtlety) it can produce interesting results.

Example 1: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (circa 1729)

Swift is trying to address the problem of poverty in Ireland and how it should be solved. He opens by explaining how difficult life is for many children who were born into poverty, and comes to the conclusion that the best thing for everyone involved is for the rich to eat these poor children...

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...”

"I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children."

This obviously created quite a stir when released, he's recommending that the best way for rich landlords to get rid of 120,000 children is to eat them. The reaction of people who read it was to hate on him and say he's a maniac but the important thing is that they read it to begin with. He provides very important data in the piece on poverty and on how landlords and tax collectors are "feeding" off of the impoverished population. The baby-eating part is just to sensationalize it and gain readership to what is essentially an eye-opener on how the very rich take advantage of the poor. He gained a lot of negative attention surely, yet it remains relevant all the way to today and has it's place in history.

Not 100% true but food for thought...

Example 2: Kill the Poor by Eric Boucher (circa 1980)

Efficiency and progress is ours once more, 

Now that we have the Neutron bomb 

It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight

Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate's gone
Feel free again
O' life's a dream with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it's okay
So let's get dressed and dance away the night

While they...Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor...Tonight!

The template for this piece was obviously Swift's A Modest Proposal yet it is interesting that it was met with the same reaction almost three hundred years later. The piece is 100% identical but just revamped for a new era it seems. No one said, "oh wow this is a sarcastic eye opener on the current political system much very similar to an essay written in 1729," in fact the reaction was even worse than 1729, Boucher at one point was even put on trial by his government for this and other material for the crime of "distributing obscenity" and accused of poisoning the minds of the youth. It's strange that 300 years later this re-issue of Swift's sarcastic critique was met with more hostility than it was in 1729.

Media: Boucher on British TV.....Boucher on Oprah w/ Tipper Gore (this is really good).

Example 3: Various Essays by High School Student Peter Nguyen (circa 1999)

This Nguyen character is far less known than the previous two but I think his writing deserves to be remembered as well. His essays took the internet by storm a few years ago (or by gale maybe...not storm), and they are something (see the rest here).

Now, before I make my point let's reduce some obvious error bars and state some obvious counter points. First, these can very possibly be fake, and someone just put red pen on it to look like it was submitted in a classroom. Also, this can be just a form of "self sabotage" and these essays are not important at all. Self sabotage is basically when you purposely don't try so you can not feel the effects of failure ever (i.e. "I know I didn't get X but it's just because I wasn't really trying..."). These essays may be subject to both and that could discredit my following point, but let's hypothetically say that they were neither fake nor self-sabotaged in order to argue my following points in safety.

The environment of the school system Nguyen was in was a very odd one for two reasons. Since the mid 1990's students all have access to the internet, and teachers in the US are given bell curve incentives.

What do kids do with the net? They "research" and then they switch some words around so it doesn't look too "researched" to their teacher.

What are bell curve incentives? Everyone goes on the curve and their grades are dished out by what piece of the curve you hit. The teachers themselves are evaluated for job performance how good their curves are, meaning they get raises and benefits for good curves. That is a conflict of interest as teachers pass everyone and edit marks to even out or fancy-up their respective bell curve to achieve higher pay and climb the pay scale.

So let's put two and two together why don't we? Thirty students go on Wiki or some other site and "research" their essay and then thirty students turn in basically the same essay to the teacher (some with better grammar than others being the biggest difference)...the teacher then assigns them to the bell curve...the ones with the worst grammar go into 60-65, then with bad grammar they go into 70-80, and the ones with excellent grammar get the 85-95 slot. Everyone passes and the teacher looks good for his/her evaluation...and everyone is happy.

Then a Peter Nguyen comes along and throws everything out of whack, where does this fucking shit fit on the bell curve? Nowhere! Getting his essay on that fucking curve is like throwing a brick into a washing machine The teacher doesn't want to fail him because it'll fuck up the curve and he/she can't pass him because he'll have proof that anyone can pass. This crazy guy is daring the teacher to fail him. Why? 

The interesting thing about Nguyen is you can tell from his writing that he is creative, original, and intelligent...so why is he daring his teachers to fail him? Is it in itself a sarcastic critique on the bell curve system in American schools? Could be...

On the Duality of Individuality and Harmony...as explored by the final episode of "The Prisoner"

On one side you want to be a good little worker bee and produce for your society and live in complete harmony with the human race...yet on the other side you want to live free and at ease and do whatever you feel like doing. Part of you wants to work hard and play your role yet the other part of you wants to yell, dance, go bunjee jumping and have fun. We live with this duality everyday and it is pretty interesting.

How shaky is this balance? Can we be too stingy and adhere to rules too much at times, and similarly can we be too selfish and just do what pleases our own selves at times? Both statements are true, and it's not hard to lose the precious balance at all.

One of the best shows ever made, that great show "The Prisoner" takes this into account in its final episode "Fallout." The Prisoner starred Patrick McGoohan as a former James Bond-esque spy who every morning wakes up on a beautiful prison colony island yet doesn't know how he got there or why. The island has no names, it only has numbers, and you are referred to by your number (The Prisoner was assigned the number 6 for instance). He spends his days attempting to escape the island and trying to figure out who's in charge of it. All he knows is the leader's name is Number 1 but no one has ever seen this person.

The Island frowns upon individuality and exists only for harmony. They preach that "Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself" and that a "a still tongue makes a happy life.” Do your assigned task and shutup is basically what the motto was there. Yet to the Prisoner this motto is a little too hard to swallow, as he refuses to adopt this lifestyle, letting it be known by stating "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own."

48: Da Bones is YOURS!!

In the final (and best) episode the big wigs of the Island put 2 individuals on trial for the crime of being an individual and expressing their individuality and a third on trial for failing to do his tasks. The first prisoner on trial Number 48, lives life out loud as he sings and dances and talks back to the authority figure, he is meant according to McGoohan to represent youthful rebellion. A great line from this scene is while 48 is doing his flashy resistance they pan to Number 6 who says, "Don't knock yourself out...young...man." Rebelling and arguing with authority really does wear you down, and 6 is right, there's gotta be a better and more creative way to challenge the status quo.

Number 6 then takes a 180 and completely goes against what he preaches and picks up a machine gun and starts killing the guards while Beatles music plays in the background. This probably represents violent opposition to authority. Why this complete 180 reversal of opinion? Do we think one way one day and another the next?

The show ends with The Prisoner meeting number 1...and (sorry to spoil it) but after #1 takes off all his deceptive masks it's The Prisoner's own face looking back at him. I guess he's trying to say that we live in this delicate duality every day, with our thoughts and opinions taking 180s and going in circles at whim. This whole delicate balance of wanting to do your role for society yet at the same time wanting to be free and at ease... makes you your own worst enemy.

Zomb-A-Movie

Super fucking famous movie director Christian Kole is making a second attempt at a Zomb-a-Movie, after having somewhat internet success with "28 Terms Later" (available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcCzRWbNBWI).

Fresh out of the prestigious Las Vegas Film School of Movie Arts, Kole has his sites set on making his second zombie movie a littler raunchier, and way more disgusting. His previous passion of documenting the mentally crooked and deranged members of society in their natural habitats (as seen here as they eat pizza and listen to some Etta James) should give him the edge and necessary experience to take on such a difficult film making endeavor.

The first draft of the script seems very well written

Back in Montreal after a long haitus in the wastelands of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Kole is excited about his project and hopes it turns out quite good.

On Human Oddities (as such)...

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Olden Times
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There are two polarized views on human oddities, one side thinking that putting these people on a pedestal for all to see is demeaning and horrible, while the other side thinks putting these people on a pedestal is simply celebrating their uniqueness and individuality.

The advanced political correctness of modern times has deemed this as demeaning and eliminated the "Freak Shows" of yesteryear for the most part. The most popular circus, Cirque de Soleil, does not even have one human oddity on its roster of performers. That brings up a very obvious counter argument right there... where do these folks work now? Most of these folks in question's handicaps make it difficult for them to find gainful employment, and unless they were born into a rich family and able to secure a large inheritence then chances are most of today's human oddities only income is through their respective government's relief programs.

I think they represent a very important cog in the human machine, I believe their personal oddities are actually the height of individuality and should indeed be celebrated. In the back of all our minds we can probably picture a world where everyone is the exactly the same and it's actually scary. A world where everyone looks the same, acts the same, walks the same, talks the same, and behaves the same. The pros of a world such as this would be many obviously, we'd get a lot more stuff done and more efficiently if we were all on the same page I guess, but wouldn't it be fantastically fucking boring though? Can a frightening society as this ever really exist? Can the great big combine harvester of human conformity really meld us into being one and the same? Or are there people who exist out there who are so different that conforming them would be a physical impossibility? Human oddities are indeed those people and they represent the burden of proof that hopefully a society of fully conformed humans will never ever be able to exist.

We've tried over and over to rid the world of these human oddities, most people are aware that Nazi Germany was big on this...they rounded up many people and had them weeded out of the human gene pool with hopes of "improving" it. Most probably don't know that every nation has had it's turn attempting to kill off these offshoots of humanity. Winston Churchill's Britain had tens of thousands of oddities and mentally handicapped individuals sterilized or lobotomized. In Canada, each province had mass sterilizations, the Alberta Eugenics Board was the most fervent in it's attempt to weed out these people (see wiki: Alberta Eugenics and google Canadian eugenics for other data).

Get away from Hans you lascivious howler you!

A great 1932 film entitled "Freaks" (available for viewing here: I mean here) made in the height of the eugenics fervor attempted to show that they were in fact humans with personalities and emotions of their own. It details the plight of a German dwarf named Hans who is in the process of being duped out of his family fortune by a beautiful acrobat, yet before she has the chance to poison poor lil' Hans and kill him, Hans' Freak brethren and sistren corner her on a stage cart and horribly mutilate her...turning her into something she reviled most...a freak herself. It should've been called "Revenge of the Freaks" or "Take that Eugenics" in my opinion, but it is a really good movie nonetheless and it has that Indian parapalegic guy in it too.

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Modern times
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One of the main reasons I love the Howard Stern show so much is their attitude towards the human oddity, they take the latter stance and celebrate these individuals and make them incredibly famous and rich. They love the individuality of oddballs, whackjobs, the criminily insane (see: Elegant Elliot Offen), and for and foremost phyisical human oddities. You've had your dwarfs over the years such as Kessler, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, that little shitball Eric the Midget, but one stands head and shoulder above the rest...the great Beetlejuice.

Lester "Beetajuice" Green (background peice) is a microcephalic dwarf who may be the most iconic and beloved human oddity in history and with very good reason. Microcephalic basically means that he has a very tiny misshapen skull.

They're Children!

Three microcephalic dwarf girls appear in the 1932 film "Freaks" as well, they are actually in two of the most poignant scenes of the film. In the first scene we see them, they are running around and playing and laughing and singing outside when two men happen upon them and start telling them that they are "monsters!", their teacher responds by yelling back that they are simply "children!" In the second scene the strong man of the circus is telling one of the girls that he is going to Paris on a trip and that he's going to bring her back a present, and while she's all smiles he follows up with "...yeah! a big old hat! hahahaha!" He makes you want to jump in the screen and beat the shit out of him.

They tried to stop people like this from existing for so long and fervently, yet over seventy years later there are still microcephalic dwarfs and they are living life large. I'm kind of an opponent of organized religion yet I like seeing Jewish people being Jewish because I know from reading history that a powerful group of horrible Nazis tried to kill every Jewish person just for being Jewish and thusly when you see a Jewish person proudly being Jewish it represents a testament to the determination and perseverance of the human race. Similarly, after all the sterilizations and lobotomies and attempts to weed out microcephalics from the gene pool, it is very uplifting to know that there is still at least one out there and he is living life as large as can.

Yeah...you.

Is Beetlejuice that cog mentioned before in the human machine that is impossible by any means to conform? No matter how hard any person, combinations of persons, or streamlined collective subconscious rule system tries...people like him can never be successfully conformed. Does he represent a golden ray of hope that a totally homogenized society can never truly exist?

Is Beetle the best? Yup, and he knows it too...

Irony

Looking into Google Adsense for a day now the ironic thing about it seems that the best way to make money with Google Adsense is to write a blog about Google Adsense.

The statistics they record for you are "unique page impressions" which means your site's traffic, "clicks" which means how many times people have clicked on the ads on your site, and your "effective CPM" which is described as follows...

"Effective CPM doesn't represent how much you have actually earned -- rather, it's calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page impressions, then multiplying by 1000. For example, if you earned an estimated $0.15 from 25 page impressions, then your page eCPM would equal ($0.15 / 25) * 1000, or $6.00. If you earned an estimated $180 from 45,000 ad impressions, your ad eCPM would equal ($180 / 45,000) * 1000, or $4.00."

That shit's intense!

All this being said, you get the most money from when people click on the stupid ads. In all seriousness have you ever clicked on an internet ad. Me? I remember when they made those game ones a few years ago where a target would move over O.J. Simpson's head and when you clicked it you got whisked away somewhere but other than that I've NEVER clicked on an internet ad. The only time that they get me to click on them now is when your held at gun point to do so, like say you wanted to get that great game Photoboy for the TurboGrafx 16, the ROM dealers will make you fill out 6 surveys and click on 5 ads before you can navigate your way out of the maze and they allow you to get to the download link.

Now that being said, who aaaaaaare these people who are clicking on internet ads? It's those people who go into the google and search for things like..."how to make money online," "make money from home," "how do I get the free monies?"....those are the ONLY people on earth who click ads. Guess what? Each ad niche on Adsense is given a price multiplier as well, for instance ads about food give you X monies per click and ads about music give you Y amount of money per click, and what are the ads that net you by far the most internet money per click? Ads about making money online! It's a cycle of ironic stupidity.

Hey Guy! Click the Target and Get all Rich!

You then throw your RSS feed on StumbleUpon, Tehcnocrati, Digg, and other venues and tag your blog with labels about making some money...and low and behold you are gonna get the hits and nothing but the hits.

If I continue updating this blog, I guarantee you the only blog update that ever has a good chance of raking in any good amount of free internet money is this scam one you are reading right now.

Dear Carl Sagan who art in somewheres...

Dear Mr. Sagan,

In your book Demon Haunted World on page number 26, you cite the popularity of Beavis and Butthead as a sign of the decline of intelligence in civilization. I feel that this point is mistaken.

The creator of Beavis and Butthead, Mr. Mike Judge, was a man of scientific intellect. He worked as an engineer previous to creating cartoons for the masses. Judge's "Beavis and Butthead" is in much the same vein as your book Demon Haunted World.

Your book is in essence a social critique of the decline of intelligence of our times, and more so a request for people to practice skepticism and foremost critical thinking. Similarly, "Beavis and Butthead" is also a social critique on the decline of national intelligence. As for promoting critical thinking? Beavis and Butthead's harsh critique of the music industry's chaff garbage forced upon the youth of the era gave the teens who watched it at that time an inherent Bullshit Detector. Anything that was fake or pretentious was automatically tossed aside and labeled as "sucks" on the program and similarly the teens of the era took a critical way of thinking to the entertainment media they observed.

Wherever you are in the universe, whether you are star stuff or whatever...please don't hate on Beavis and Butthead bro.

(Sources: Sagan, C. Demon Haunted World, p.26)

True

"If I were a little weaker, I may have died more easily.."

true brother, true.

Radio transmission 6

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Pride
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Friday, September the 17th 1993, almost 50,000 people there that night, Phillies get 7 runs in the sixth innings and we're down 7 to 3. The Expos inch back and tie it up again in the bottom of the seventh culminating with a two run double by a young rookie name Curtis Pride. The kid's first hit ever and it's maybe the biggest hit in Expos history in the last 20 years. This guy by the way was a deaf guy, you can't even make this up man. A deaf guy name PRIDE (of all things) being the hero in front of 50,000 fans. He said he couldn't hear the ovation but could feel the vibrations and reverberations of the 50,000 people showing their appreciation. We made a deaf guy hear! You can't make this stuff up, even for like a cheesy/corny TV movie or something no one would believe it...but this is a 100% authentic factual information!

I was 10 years old, I was cheering and clapping so much for him I lost my voice and my hands were red! It was great dude.