You have asked for this Office's views on whether certain proposed editorial conduct would violate the prohibitions against torture of readers and writers found at Section 2340A of title 18 of the Littérateurs Sans Frontières Internationale Convention of 1896.
First, Nanki-poo, lose the goddamn Française. Know what that did for Kerry -- that other Kerry, meathead.
Second, sing the department ditty1:
As some day it may happen
that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list —
I've got a little list
Of society offenders
who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed —
who never would be missed!
Martyn Greene as Ko-Ko, 1930s
And finally, remember they are detainees, never readers or writers. We detain 'em, harvest their eyeballs, convert it to revenue, end of story.
It is when they object to voluntary eyeball-plucking, the following techniques gleaned from the SREE (Surviving Rapid Editorial Ejection) Handbook may be used singly or in combination and are approved for Cover Selection, Editorial Nose Picking and Earwax Removal (hereafter called " Cover See 'n Pee").
Intellectual Deprivation2 (none dare call it Torture by U-Tube):
For optimal deprivation, the white space should not be sullied by text. Our exemplars represent the purest pinnacles of this approach by limiting their intellectual contributions to:
- "A friend sent this to me and I thought it would be fun to watch"
- and the award-winning, minimalist: "Thanks, Redeye."
Professorial (Pin)Pricks:
Mindless hash combined with rapid-fire reviews of TV trash. Best exemplified by pinhead from the Bronx who teaches stuff like "Comparative Eclectic Media Studies - Free Brunch Provided".
If reviews prove to be heavy lifting, substitute plot-lines lifted from TV Guide.
Bombard with deep conclusions about real life from someone named Jack Bauer, pitched at the level of high school sophomores :
- "Do ends justify the means?"
- and "If a terrorist was going to blow up NYC, would torture be permissible?"
Apparently Jack did, NYC was saved and the professor got his automatic.
Columnist Colonic Irrigation:
Now that their brains have been emptied, other cavities may be explored to extract detainees' precious bodily fluids. Previously named after Gen. Jack D. Ripper, this technique is now simply known as Sirotasis.
Enlist the aid of some incessantly self- aggrandizing soi disant journalist specializing in vaunting his expertise by putting his own U-Tube clips en blog and transcribing what he himself said in purple prose. This advanced combination technique is especially efficacious against for hearing-impaired readers or those who do not understand spoken English.
Dietary Manipulation3 aka "Warmed-over Newsfeed":
Assume that readers have no other sources of information at their disposal other than OS. Clog the Cover with unattributed cribs about fifteen-minute- famers after seventeen minutes have elapsed:
- Susan Boyle Undressed
- Carrie Prejean's Depressed
- Lindsay Lohan's a Mess
Effectiveness of this technique is enhanced by inclusion of U-Tube clip.
Nudity4 - I'm not called Lord Ko-Ko of Titipu for nothing:
When it is deemed that the detainees have reached the nadir of sensory numbness -- stimulate them. TITILLATE them.
In the aptly named Titipu Attack, the old deprivation/excitation technique is raised to new heights. Plaster the cover with:
- Call Girls with PhDs
- Devils with Dildos (remember, the mental age of our subjects is fourteen; don't know why but dildos always get a rise)
- Gay Teabagging Cougars Troll for Underage Lolitas -- Is this Legal? Ethical?
And it is imperative you keep the bot-sponsored "Sexiest Men Living" and "Pitbulls in Spamalot" on the feed 24/7. These are the most mindless weapons in our arsenal to keep the masses writhing in a state of impotent tumescence -- horny but helpless -- a necessary precursor to our penultimate technique.
Just as the hard-up male OS member is expecting blissful relief, feeling his abdomen grasped or held, he opens his eyes to face Mistress Doom:
Jostlin' Testicles Harder
Game over. La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall!
The technique is, of course, called "The Tchaikovsky." JTH is our best executrix, guaranteeing permanent irritation without concomitant satisfaction. Attitude-heavy. Content-free. Automatic cover.
The Thermonuclear Option
Threaten
to
Resurrect
OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
PLEASE, NOT HERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
NOT DOC A ...........................AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!
WE GIVE UP. WE FOLD. YOU WIN. DO WITH US AS YOU WILL.
Defer, defer,
To the noble Lord,
To the noble Lord High Executioner!
Bow down, bow down,
To the Lord High Executioner!1
Coda:
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere,
Non amo te.
- Martialis I.32
WOOF
__________________________________________________
Notes:
1. The Mikado by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (1885)
The following are excerpted from the summary in the New York Times of the Justice Department memos describing interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
2. Sleep Deprivation: Intellectual deprivation may be substituted for sleep, as in the following paragraph mutatis mutandis.
“It is clear that intellectual deprivation does not involve severe physical pain ... so long as such deprivation (as you have informed us is your intent) is used for limited periods, before hallucinations or other profound disruptions of the senses would occur.”
3. Dietary Manipulation: “This technique involves the substitution of commercial liquid meal replacements for normal food, presenting detainees with a bland, unappetizing, but nutritionally complete diet.”
4. Nudity: “Although some detainees might be humiliated by this technique, especially given possible cultural sensitivities and the possibility of being seen by female officers, it cannot constitute ‘severe mental pain or suffering’ under the statute.”
5. Abdominal Slap: " The abdominal slap, like other corrective techniques, can be combined with more stressful techniques, such as wall standing, water dousing and stress positions."
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Dana Dangerous
Skip Williamson
designanator
Dennis Knight
dharmabummer
Critical Mess
Salon.com
Comments
or: Yeah, I was gonna say that. You just beat me to it.
(What's all that fancy stuff about dicing up tantric possums?)
Pawed!
WHIMPERoof
Executrix? Priceless!
Is Lord Ko-Ko descended from Lord HaHa?
"I am become dearth, ignorer of words"
Or better yet, in the words of Charlton Heston as Taylor in the Planet of the Apes: "You blew it up! You Blew it all up! God Damn you to Hell!"
I was wondering if you would suggest the ultimate in OS torture and yes, there she is at the very end. I am particularly amused/horrified by the fact the her reappearance on the cover is both an example of the fact that she is just not going to go away--ever!--and the weirdness of the Most Read (or popular or whatever the hell the metric is), which will eventually be completely static.
After much deprivation, you give us such a feast!
Axeman, great (useless) minds think alike. Another (useless) salvo can't hurt. But it probably won't help either :-(. The Heston quote was priceless.
Tom, dangit, you are right. We did volunteer. But that was befor the election. And I'm sure we can get some pointy-headed loopy lefty prof. to point out that "Torture's Gotten Worse Since the Election" and lay it all at Obama's feet!
Nana: Actually I don't do cruel that well -- unless it's aimed at known Republicants :-). And this piece, using real posts, may have crossed the line. I had to decide whether to use real posts, rather than the more usual hokeyed up ones. But I thought the posts I used were so bad, they were all Covers, so, enough free passes.
Lady Miko: Your confusion is probably nothing compared to my own. All I can say is I must have inadvertently inhaled while writing this :-).
Thank you, Dorinda. Actually I even put "Dr. Who" in the tag just to suck up to whichever one of our Overlords does the Galactica automatics ;-). But may be that's before they came of age.
Thanks Cathy, Fab, Kelly. And Harry, I think I blew up the bridge on the River Kwai. Or as they say in these more refayned Salon circles: "You'll never have lunch in this town again". I might have to take a crash course in dumpster diving from you just to survive :-).
WOOF
Who am I? What am I doing here? Why am I talking to a dog?
Oh, you're a talking dog!! Awesome. Here's a bone!!
*wanders off*
:)
But that post about my ghosts has been on the feed for eons, and let me be clear ... NO BOTS. At this point, even I'm feeling the need to say, "Make it stop." whimper.
Don: Was "Fluffy" like "The Chipmunk Song?" Tell your brothers you got something better -- an entire set of OS covers before initiation: only the strongest (or dumbest) minds will survive.
OMG, Susan, "Sexiest Men" "Spamalot" AND Doc Amy permanently on the Cover takes giving us the Third Degree to truly unbearable levels! But seriously, what is their percentage in having parts of the cover frozen? If those hits are from the outside -- they are not resulting from the cover in the first place. Why not use it for "inside" hits and a truer picture of what the community is reading and writing. Oh I forgot -- there is no community.
Dharma, and don't forget I threw in Keats just for kicks! I don't know if OS needs an enema, but I do think what the Eds have been givin' us on the cover looks awfully like, how to put it... efflux.
WOOF
Odette: My friends, strike that, favorites can stay on the cover as long as they like. It's those other jerks.... Besides, you have the "Galactica" franchise nailed down ;-).
Robin: I fear the Eds have gone beyond their briefs. If you are seeing yellow cornflowers and I am beginning to believe I am a yellow dog, I think this cover torture is way past the CIA stopping point "before hallucinations or other profound disruptions of the senses would occur."
WOOF
I agree with Susan. I think their most viewed software is just plain screwed up. You had alerted me last month when my Ted Kennedy post suddenly showed up there. It's the only post I had put a counter on, and it reads 3789, God knows how -- I think some outside people must have picked up on it. But the OS counter reads 13,000+ !
Btw, talking about friends and favorites, don't want to get you paranoid, but you had dropped off my favorites' list, and never showed up on my "Updates". Don't worry, you've been reinstated, because I love ya :).
Which reminds me, every now and then there will be a couple days where the cover is really, really good, and I don't just mean those times they put me there. Care to speculate?
"Speak roughly to your editor
And beat him when he sneezes.
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases."
But none of the rough or gentle speaking seems to work. You're right, there had been some slight improvement, but this fare for the weekend is fit for the dogs.
Susan, SB, I agree their software's probably wonky. But it's their strategy that seems even wonkier. Eyeballs directed from external links goes directly to the specific blog -- doubt if people even bother to read even that author's other posts, let alone visit the cover or home page. So why clutter the cover with crap? Sudden disappearance of favorites is an old bug, I think. I know many have disappeared from my list. Maybe this happens if one's favorite "does something" like edit their account or some such. We'll never know, will we?
WOOF