1) Now that Johnny Cash is dead, don’t you feel bad about making fun of his Nine Inch Nails cover?
2) Ddi oyu konw taht polpee wlil ceopnehmrd teh mnaeing fo stnceenes eevn fi hte lrtetes ni lal fo teh wdors rae jblmued epcext fro hte fsrit adn lsat?
3) Why do you continue to make fun of the Ontario Conservatives after their thorough election defeat? Must you kick them when they’re down?
4) So, did you vote in the election?
5) Do you believe that there are some questions in the universe that have no answer?
6) Why are you so hard on Canada and her allies (like the United States and Israel), but not nearly so hard on her enemies (like Islamic terrorist or Arab suicide bombers)?
7) So, basically, what you’re saying is that you’re a knee-jerk anti-American, and a self-hating Jew.
8) Now that Les Pages aux Folles has a discussion area, do you have plans for any other new features on the site?
1) Now that Johnny Cash is dead, don’t you feel bad about making fun of his Nine Inch Nails cover?
If I worried about how I would feel after every person I made fun of died, I would have become a dance instructor.
2) Ddi oyu konw taht polpee wlil ceopnehmrd teh mnaeing fo stnceenes eevn fi hte lrtetes ni lal fo teh wdors rae jblmued epcext fro hte fsrit adn lsat?
Will you please stop using this space to conduct Masters level psychological experiments? I mean, really – don’t you have a lab or something where you can do this stuff?
3) Why do you continue to make fun of the Ontario Conservatives after their thorough election defeat? Must you kick them when they’re down?
Fair is fair. They kicked Ontarians who were down throughout their administration.
4) So, did you vote in the election?
Oh, sure, I did my civic doody. Ordinarily, I try to avoid voting stations – small, poorly lit spaces designed for the maximum amount of privacy. I’m always afraid I’m going to run into a drug dealer there, or worse, a Jehovah’s Witness. My friends have always insisted that you can’t complain about the results of an election if you don’t vote. I don’t know. Whenever I try to explain to them that writing a weekly column of political satire on and off for two decades is more civic engagement than voting once every four or five years, they get a far-away look in their eyes that tells me that they’ve gone to that special quiet place, and I won’t be able to reach them.
When I sat down behind the cardboard façade that ensures the privacy of my vote and looked at the ballot, I found that the only name I knew was that of the incumbent, and the only reason for that was because his people had been busy putting up signs the night before. Mine wasn’t exactly a hotly contested riding. After a couple of hours of trying to figure out who the other candidates were, with the shouts of the people standing in the ever-growing lineup ringing in my ears, I wrote across the ballot in block letters: “Ha ha, suckers! You nearly got me that time!”
My friends (who, when you think about it, are really nosy) tell me that every vote makes a difference. Oh, sure. The candidate I would have voted for lost by 15,212 votes. The only way my vote would have made a difference would have been if it had been counted 15,213 times!
5) Do you believe that there are some questions in the universe that have no answer?
6) Why are you so hard on Canada and her allies (like the United States and Israel), but not nearly so hard on her enemies (like Islamic terrorists or Arab suicide bombers)?
I believe that a nation’s enemies make cheap and easy targets, and that by using one’s rhetorical weapons against them, all you’re doing is reinforcing your own prejudices. Besides, in a practical sense, your enemies are largely immune to your criticism; it’s hard for me to imagine a terrorist saying to himself, “Oh, gee, this guy in North York, Ontario, Canada compared me to a ball of explosive belly button lint – guess I’ll have to give up my plans to bomb that disco in Jerusalem!” By engaging in the discussion of issues relevant to my country and its allies, I may actually be able to broaden people’s point of view and affect their actions. Well, that’s the theory, anyway.
7) So, basically, what you’re saying is that you’re a knee-jerk anti-American, and a self-hating Jew.
Oh, yeah. You’ve got me pegged.
8) Now that Les Pages aux Folles has a discussion area, do you have plans for any other new features on the site?
I was thinking of building a salad bar next to the contents page for book five, but the architect I asked to look over the blueprints warned me that I would have to tear down a wall that contained a support beam, and that I was risking having the entire Web site collapse, so I decided against it. It’s probably just as well – that area of the Web site is poorly lit, and I would hate to be responsible for anybody accidentally getting croutons in their satire.