The Hyperion Chronicles

#20 A Few Modest Proposals

“Men are never so good or so bad as their opinions.”

-Sir James Mackintosh

“He that would govern others, first should be master of himself.”

-Philip Massinger

George W. Bush, or G. Dub, as I call him, telephoned me yesterday. Seems that he is a reader of the column, and likes the ideas I have put forth. He offered me a chance to change nine things about this country in the first few months of his administration. Here they are:

Shut UP, Dan Rather

When people on TV are wrong, they should have to admit it. I am talking about news anchors, weathermen, editorialists, pundits; anyone who is giving opinions and telling us what is going to happen. I do not want to take away their right to spout off, but when they are proven wrong, they should have to say so in at least as big a way as they originally proclaimed their knowledge.

And In This Corner

Here are a few pay-per-view grudge matches I would like to see:

BILL CLINTON VS. NEWT GINGRICH

HILLARY CLINTON VS. MONICA LEWINSKY

REGIS VS. KATHY LEE

BERT VS. ERNIE

ASIA VS. AFRICA

HOWARD STERN VS. RUSH LIMBAUGH

BRADY BUNCH VS. PARTRIDGE FAMILY

MOTHER THERESA VS. PRINCESS DIANA

MUNSTERS VS. ADAMS FAMILY

BARBRA STRIESAND VS. MIKE TYSON

GINGER VS. MARYANNE

MARTIN LUTHER KING VS. GHANDI

ROSIE ODONNELL VS. OPRAH

JESUS VS. BUDDHA (no miracles allowed)

HIPPIES VS. GENERATION X

RICHARD SIMMONS VS. ELMO THE MUPPET

TINA TURNER VS. ELTON JOHN

SANTA CLAUS, THE EASTER BUNNY, ST. PATRICK, GROUNDHOG, AND CUPID IN A BATTLE ROYAL

CHEER VS. TIDE

FRANCE VS. THE HORDES OF HELL

Spam In The Place Where You Live

Forget voting for the moment, I want to reform email. First, I hate it when I have to open an attachment five times just to see it. Of course, this would be solved if the sender would take the time to clean up the Forward, but I do not see people getting any more industrious. In the interim, it would be nice to have a “clean-up” feature on email. This would also be good for previous senders and sendees. I do not want to see five hundred addresses, and I am sure they do not want me to see them. Again, this could be solved by people taking a few extra seconds to clean up the email, but as I said…2) I would like there to be a “received” button. I have learned, especially through this column, that most people are passive. I cannot change that, much as I would like to. However, sometimes when you write something, you are not even sure that the person got what you sent. If you worked hard, this can be frustrating. A response that only said, “received” would at least let the sender know that you got the item. 3) I would like email slang to be included in the email dictionaries. I see these acronyms: lol, ttyr, brb, hud, dke, koqe, just to name a few. I don’t know what all these mean. I just recently learned what =) means. It means, “I just made fun of you. Please don’t get mad.” 4) I want people to learn to spell. Most emails have spell check, so there is no excuse, other than laziness. I am prepared to offer a few bones, to encourage people to at least try to correct the spelling mistakes. 5) The letter “I” only means one thing: the writer is talking about him or herself. With that in mind, it seems reasonable that we could allow emails to use “i” to mean ourselves, since no one is going to get confused, unless the letter includes a treatise on differential calculus.

Who Are They?

I want to be “they”, as in “you know what they say.” Fashion experts, trying to explain the current year’s trends, respond with “they say black is big this year.” Well, black is big every year, so bad example, but you get my point. Somewhere out there is “they”: a man, sitting there making all of these decisions. I know it is a man because A) he sometimes also goes by the title “The Man”, and B) no woman would come up with some of these “they” choices, which variously make women abuse their bodies in ways that are just plain crazy. “They” has to be a man. I want to be him, if just for a week.

Watch Your Language

I want some say in the words we use. I am tired of Webster getting to make all the choices. Who is this Webster, anyway? If it’s the guy who used to have the TV show, I can take him. I have several suggestions, but they are interesting enough that I am going to write a completely separate column about them. Stay tuned.

Forget The Frequency, Kenneth, What is The Song?

You know what I hate? I am driving down the road, listening to the radio. A song comes on I like. Maybe I have never heard it before, or maybe I just do not know the artist or title. I wait patiently to the end to hear this information, but it does not come. I sometimes wait up to half an hour to hear the name of the song, and sometimes I never hear it at all. How hard would it be to say the artist and title and the beginning and end of each song?

Give Me That Remote

And while I’m thinking about it: I want a button put on the remote control so that when I flip to a channel, I can press that button and the name of the program will pop up on the screen.

Read My Lips: No Nude Babies

I have a real problem with Diaper companies, among others, shilling nude babies in their commercials. I am not saying there is anything inherently evil about this. I am sure that the parents are signed off on it (just as I’m sure they signed off on the check they got). Here is my worry: No matter what a parent said, We would not allow a six year old or a ten year old to be filmed or photographed naked. At best we would call that exploitation, and at worse abuse. I am not suggesting we have an insidious ring of baby pornographers, but where do we draw the line? Two years old? Three years? Four? I am not willing to say what constitutes child pornography and what does not. Just so there is no slippery slope, I say we knock the practice off all together.

Juliet, Or Gertrude Stein

This is my 20^th Column, and I still do not have a name. I want a name. Anyone who can offer one gets a free subscription for life; at least until I figure out how to make money doing this.

Peace, for now,

Hyperion
December 16, 2000