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A 40-ish publisher (editor, project manager, etc.), husband, and father of an even number of offspring, I grew up, or failed to, reading fantasy and sci-fi. I still enjoy reading, and now am trying to write. My favorite books include YA fantasy, manga, biography, and advice to authors. I'm also a former history major/grad student/high school teacher and assessment writer. Now I work for a school supplement publisher, specializing in high-low chapter books. I spend a lot of my time controlling reading levels. At night, I cut loose and use long words. W00t!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

List or satire: who can tell?

I used to love reading the Harper's Index. I actually read the whole magazine, cover to cover, when I subscribed. (Come to think of it, I might subscribe again. That was pretty good reading.)

The reasons I liked the Index were the latent humor of juxtaposition, the generally progressive message the list of data conveyed, and the heady feeling that there was humor out there, just waiting to be dug up, in newspaper clippings and economic statistics and other modern political detritus.

It's that sort of confusion and humorous serendipity, the feeling that we may be looking at information, or natural events, or something intended to be serious, or we may be looking at a satire of it, and we can't tell at first. 

That's why I wanted to share this list of Republican actions - as Speaker Boehner promised leading up to the 2010 legislative election - to focus on job creation.



My favorite:
(110) 11-18-2011: The House is once again considering the "Balanced Budget Amendment", which sounds almost reasonable until you learn it could cost millions of jobs. Oy vey.
Actually, I just picked that one quickly. I couldn't really decide on a favorite. However, I like having a list of Congress' GOP majority's actions resolutely failing to create, and mostly even failing to address, jobs.

This isn't totally subtle, but it is a list, and it is satire. I think.

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