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> Is this tripe supposed to be funny? Human rights abuses are all too
comm
> on for
> many people in this world, and I for one don't consider them an
appropr
> iate
> subject for jokes.
> I live on a planet where dozens of children starved to death in the time it
took
> me to write this; where incurable viruses that feed on my species are
springing
> up at an alarming rate; where the jungle that makes the air I breathe is being
> burned off so that the thin soil underneath can be turned into poorly
producing
> farms; where blowing up babies with fuel oil and fertilizer is considered by
> some
> an acceptable form of political expression. I don't know where your first
> detractor
> is from, but I am from Earth. I can't fix all of these conditions, warp drive
> won't
> be invented for another 300 years, and if I don't find ways to laugh at the
> horrors
> around me I will go screaming mad.
> <snip>
> <flame2>
> This might come closer to being funny if it didn't try to come
> across as a report by a real-life organization (STC). I know you
> aren't the author, but I thought I'd let you know that I find it
> offensive. [the author] should have made up some humorously named
> organization for his satire.
> It took me a while to realize that your posting was not really a report from
> STC. I think it was line two. Forgive me for being blatantly darwinian here,
> but anybody slow enough not to realize this was a humor piece (or unwilling to
> read the heading) deserves to be fooled. Or as Eli Wallach said in "The
> Magnificent Seven", "If God had not intended them to be shorn, he would not
> have made them sheep."
> By now you have probably received a private message from Eric Ray telling you
> that your humor piece was not appropriate material for the list. (Never mind
> how I happen to know this.) He's probably right. But anybody telling you it
was
> unfunny or offensive needs a new shipment of lighten ups.
> Steve English
> ink -at- micros -dot- com
> I do not speak for my employers, and boy are they relieved.
