Satirists Guild calls for halt on WMD stories
22 Jun 2003 by Allen Voivod
In a press release issued yesterday morning, the International Satirists Guild called on satirists worldwide to put a halt to articles lampooning the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq until there is a "further significant development" in the situation.
"For Thor's sake, if I'm sick of WMD stories, the public must be vomiting by now," Guild President Douglass Ramssmullett said via telephone from Oslo, Norway. "It's like putting on your underwear. You feel them on your skin for a while, and then you don't! We've dulled our audience's tolerance for the subject! Assuming they wear underwear, that is."
Though the Guild request is non-binding, it is expected to have a major effect on satirical publications and web sites, the content of which is largely created or selected by high-ranking Guild members.
It could also, in the worst case, create a schism in the Guild the likes of which haven't been seen since the Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosisgate scandal that rocked the Clinton White House in 1994. Satire writers, brimming with ideas that were refused by editors, created their own web sites and publications, eventually damaging the fragile satire ecosystem so significantly that irony itself was declared dead by the mainstream public.
Satire editors contacted for this story responded on condition of anonymity, considering the volatile nature of this issue. Most stated that they would rather dismember themselves or commit acts of mayhem on their own bodies if forced to read another WMD story.
But if the response of writers on the Guild's board of directors is any indication, trouble could be afoot. Pytr Tsypvldryg, the noted Kyrgyzstanian satirist, responded today by brandishing a manual for Dreamweaver web site design software and shouting, "Let the streets flow with the blood of the non-believers! Our time has come!"
22 Jun 2003 by Allen Voivod
In a press release issued yesterday morning, the International Satirists Guild called on satirists worldwide to put a halt to articles lampooning the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq until there is a "further significant development" in the situation.
"For Thor's sake, if I'm sick of WMD stories, the public must be vomiting by now," Guild President Douglass Ramssmullett said via telephone from Oslo, Norway. "It's like putting on your underwear. You feel them on your skin for a while, and then you don't! We've dulled our audience's tolerance for the subject! Assuming they wear underwear, that is."
Though the Guild request is non-binding, it is expected to have a major effect on satirical publications and web sites, the content of which is largely created or selected by high-ranking Guild members.
It could also, in the worst case, create a schism in the Guild the likes of which haven't been seen since the Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosisgate scandal that rocked the Clinton White House in 1994. Satire writers, brimming with ideas that were refused by editors, created their own web sites and publications, eventually damaging the fragile satire ecosystem so significantly that irony itself was declared dead by the mainstream public.
Satire editors contacted for this story responded on condition of anonymity, considering the volatile nature of this issue. Most stated that they would rather dismember themselves or commit acts of mayhem on their own bodies if forced to read another WMD story.
But if the response of writers on the Guild's board of directors is any indication, trouble could be afoot. Pytr Tsypvldryg, the noted Kyrgyzstanian satirist, responded today by brandishing a manual for Dreamweaver web site design software and shouting, "Let the streets flow with the blood of the non-believers! Our time has come!"
