Thursday, February 10, 2005

You couldn't make this shit up

The scandal de jour (deux jours and counting - ed) in Ireland has centered on Irish Times columnist Kevin Myers's intemperate rant about unmarried mothers, or "mothers of bastards" as he so perceptively refers to them. It's bound to run and run, in spite of his grovelling apology in today's paper.

Someone who can only envy Mr. Myers his audience is Ron Khol, the editor of Machine Design magazine, "The Design Engineer's In-Depth Resource for 75 Years." It must be tough trying to come up with a fresh and compelling editorial topic every week on the subject of machine design, so Mr. Khol has taken to diversifying in recent issues. Suffice to say, he puts Myers to shame on the subject of unmarried mothers and the wickedness of the urban underclass.

Please, take your time to read this article, then try to figure out what it has to do with machine design. If you can't see any connection, then I suggest you read this, his follow-up editorial, "Why I Write about Poverty," in which he makes clear the connection, but not before teasing you into thinking he's completely bonkers and then confirming it in the final paragraphs.

No parodist to could come close to reproducing this sort of Daily Mail fascism. I'm thinking of taking a subscription just for the editorials alone.




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