This is the 200th post for Strange Horizons.
(pause for jubilation)
I can think of no way better to celebrate than with a submission from Scott Pakin's Automatic Complaint Generator. The web site can produce a complaint letter/email for any organization or individual that you input. Yes, even one about yourself. I generated one for this blog and have not stopped laughing since reading it. No, I do not know Mr. Pakin. But whoever he is, wherever he is, I think he's a genius. Behold my ontological undressing!
"I'm sorry, but I just can't avoid talking about Strange Horizons. Many of the arguments I'm about to make rest upon the rock-solid principles of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. If it weren't for these freedoms, I wouldn't be allowed to tell you that Strange Horizons is starved for attention. To cap that off, Strange Horizons, already oppressive with its pompous, mephitic false-flag operations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species—if separate species we be—for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world. If you think that that's a frightening thought then consider that over time, Strange Horizons's expedients have progressed from being merely obstinate to being superobstinate, hyperobstinate, and recently ultraobstinate. In fact, I'd say that now they're even megaobstinate.
I want to transcend traditional thinking. That may seem simple enough, but Strange Horizons counts the worst classes of besotted muttonheads there are as its friends. Unfortunately for it, these are hired friends, false friends, friends incapable of realizing for a moment that if my memory serves me correctly, Strange Horizons's voluble newsgroup postings are meticulously designed to keep the population unaware, uneducated, dumbed down, and focused on stupefying activities like video games. The intention is to prevent people from noticing that Strange Horizons has been violating the basic tenets of journalism and scholarship. I hate to say this, but Strange Horizons's henchmen tend to fall into the mistaken belief that Strange Horizons can override nature, mainly because they live inside a Strange Horizons-generated illusion world and talk only with each other.
According to Strange Horizons, infernal firebrands aren't ever impractical. It might as well be reading tea leaves or tossing chicken bones on the floor for divination about what's true and what isn't. Maybe then Strange Horizons would realize that it's easy to tell if it's lying. If its lips are moving, it's lying. There's no mystery about it, no more room for fairy tales, just the knowledge that we are at a crossroads. One road leads into the light of a bright, shining future in which pushy, stinking vigilantes like Strange Horizons are thoroughly absent. The other road leads into the darkness of sectarianism. The question, therefore, is: Who's driving the bus? I'll tell you the answer in a moment. But first, let me just say that Strange Horizons contends that our unalienable rights are merely privileges that it can dole out or retract and that, therefore, simplism is a wonderful thing. This bizarre pattern of thinking leads to strange conclusions. For example, it convinces effrontive, detestable rascals (as distinct from the pouty, money-grubbing fault-finders who prefer to chirrup while hopping from cloud to cloud in Nephelococcygia) that there is an international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. In reality, contrariwise, I honestly dislike Strange Horizons. Likes or dislikes, however, are irrelevant to observed facts, such as that I have no set opinion as to whether or not Strange Horizons is a tremendous deadweight on our will and morale. I do, however, definitely allege that if it weren't for muzzy-headed, truculent ragamuffins, it would have no friends.
Strange Horizons will indisputably damage the debate about this issue in that we will have to spend lots of time correcting misunderstandings that are directly attributable to its calumnies. Strange Horizons's companions have been running around recently trying to make higher education accessible only to those in the higher echelons of society. Meanwhile, Strange Horizons has been preparing to undermine the foundations of society until a single thrust suffices to make the entire edifice collapse. The whole episode smacks of a carefully orchestrated operation. If you ask me, Strange Horizons believes that it is everyone's obligation to take a condescending cheap shot at a person that most cynical scum will never be in a position to condescend to. That view is anathema to the cause of liberty. If it is not loudly refuted our future will be dire indeed.
Strange Horizons's behavior might be different if it were told that its pals have the power to use paternalism as a more destructive form of particularism whenever they feel like it. Of course, as far as Strange Horizons is concerned, this fact will fall into the category of, "My mind is made up; don't confuse me with the facts." That's why I'm telling you that its "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude is clumsy because it leaves no room for compromise. One of Strange Horizons's most loyal chums is known to have remarked, "Representative government is an outmoded system that should be replaced by a system of overt cynicism." And there you have it: a direct quote from a primary source. The significance of that quote is that Strange Horizons has warned us that before you know it, dangerous, virulent exhibitionists will promote a culture of dependency and failure. If you think about it, you'll realize that Strange Horizons's warning is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that anti-intellectualism, McCarthyism, and interdenominationalism follow Strange Horizons's footsteps. Wherever it goes, such things are sure to sprout up. The implication is that Strange Horizons's headlong, unholy nostrums have a demoralizing effect on the victims of human-rights violations. Get that straight, please. Any other thinking is blame-shoving or responsibility-dodging. Furthermore, I have one itsy-bitsy problem with Strange Horizons's viewpoints. Videlicet, they separate people from their roots and cut their bonds to their natural communities. And that's saying nothing about how I once told it that it will just moan and groan until we give it permission to quote me out of context. How did it respond to that? It proceeded to curse me off using a number of colorful expletives not befitting this letter, which serves only to show that Strange Horizons hates people who have huge supplies of the things it lacks. What it lacks the most is common sense, which underlies my point that he who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. Of course, people like Strange Horizons who do in fact perpetrate evil hurt people's feelings. To close, let me accentuate that if we unite rich and poor, young and old, we shall not only survive Strange Horizons's attacks; we shall prevail."
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It's like reading every single letter in the newspaper's opinion page. Or the forums of pretty much anything. Hilarious.
ReplyDeleteSigned, muzzy-headed, truculent ragamuffin.