When Satire Becomes Too Easy — Or, What Are We Going to Do with Sarah Palin?

I’ve only just seen the CNN clip below and I have to admit it gave me a chuckle or two. Nonetheless, it begs the question, “Should an easy target be shown a little leniency?” Do we reach a point where we should say, “Okay, this is getting rather too easy — let’s cut this individual some slack”? Or do we simply keep hurling satirical shit right back at them?

I vote we keep hurling satirical shit right back at them! (But, then, I’m sure you already knew that, didn’t you? 😉 )

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Idiosyncratica Monthly Challenge — “Lost.”

This is my contribution for the September Idiosyncratica challenge set by Archie. I’m not sure I’ve done an especially good job with this one — I had a hell of a difficult time thinking of a subject and pounced on this at the 11th hour. In many respects, I think I found it more difficult than the drabble of the previous month.

Anyway, see what you think!

Lost

On Monday morning, he smiled at me for the first time and I thought we might actually be getting somewhere.

            “It’s a load of bollocks, innit?” he said when I sat down beside him in the cafeteria. “You and them, you don’t reckon it is, like-or if you do, you’ll never admit it-but that’s exactly what it is.”

            I’d been assigned to him for a couple of weeks now and I was more than familiar with his conversational tactics. He liked to start off with a definite advantage. It was my job, as he saw it, to try to make sense of his cryptic openings.

            “What is?” I said. It never did to pretend with Graham “Sleep” Ferguson. Better just to admit from the beginning that you didn’t have a fucking clue what he was on about.

            “All this.” He grinned again. Maybe this wasn’t the positive I had imagined it to be.

            “All what?”

            “Stop playing dumb. You know what. All this ‘get ’em off the streets and make ’em into decent fucking citizens’-lark. It’s all a load of bollocks.”

            “Yeah, sure.”

            “See, I said you and them others wouldn’t admit it. It’s all just fucking make-believe.”

            “So what are you telling me? You’d rather be out on the streets killing time and each other?”

            “If I wanted to do that, I would-and none of youse would stop me.”

            “So it’s a load of bollocks but you still choose to take part in it. Makes sense, I suppose.”

            “Fuck you, smart arse.”  

          Sleep was smiling again.

 

“It’s a load of bollocks, innit?”

            I was standing by my car, about to unlock the door. I knew who it was right away, of course. I knew-and the darkness of the car park underscored my vulnerability. Sleep. The boy with the smile, the boy I was “helping”.

            Nothing to worry about there.

            Turning, I saw his toothy grin. Turning, I noticed his legs-apart, ready-for-action stance. Turning, I realised he wasn’t alone.

            “Sleep, what can I…”

            He didn’t let me finish.

            The three of them came towards me. I briefly considered running, but I knew that there’d be no way I could get away from them. They’d be too quick for me.

            “You lot just don’t get it, do you?” he said. He held a knife in his hand. “You can’t save us because you just don’t fucking know where to find us. You can see us, like, but that just makes it worse. You don’t even know we’re lost.”

            I thought it was all over then. And it was.

But not for me.

            Sleep turned and with one deft movement planted the blade of the knife in the flesh beneath the ribs of one of his surprised companions.

            “It’s just what we do,” Sleep softly told me.

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Data Loss and Government.

“Ministers have been accused of a “massive failure of duty” after thousands of criminals’ details, stored on a computer memory stick, were lost.”

It shouldn’t really be a surprise, by now. We have been faced with so many similar stories over recent months that it is difficult to know what more can be said on the subject, other than to once again point out that this underscores the argument against the planned Super Database and ID cards.

Our current sorry excuse for a government (and, I’m sad to say, I suspect it would be the same whoever was in power) and the private firms that they employ to do research for them et cetera are quite simply incapable of responsibly handling large amounts of personal data.

“On Tuesday, a BBC analysis found sensitive data potentially affecting more than four million people had been lost by government departments in the year to April.“

If you are also opposed to ID cards/database, you can register your opposition here.

© 2008 Gary William Murning