Dr. Forbush Thinks

Shock and Awe

Yesterday I received my issue of the New Yorker. Then I lost it. Actually I set it on the kitchen table and the kids moved it to the coffee table. After dinner I couldn’t find it until I saw the bright orange cover of this weeks issue peeking out from under the coffee table.

I really like the New Yorker, because the quality of the writing is what I aspire to. Obviously if you have read my blog you know that there is no way that you will be reading what I write in the New Yorker any time soon.

This week there were several articles that left me satisfied after reading them. But the most impressive was a little bit of satire from Ian Frazier. You can read it yourself here:

Here to Tell You

Ian Frazier begins with a quote from Jerry Falwell from his autobiography. He tells us about Falwell’s father who “plays a prank” on a guy, he doesn’t like by cooking the guy’s cat and serving it to him. My thoughts continuously went to disgust over and over again before I could even get to the satire. How could a Christian preacher even think about publishing such a disgusting story? Wouldn’t publishing the sexual antics of his mother be just about as disgusting? Somehow I can imagine that they would draw the line there. When so-called Christians talk about what should and should not be published how could they come to the conclusion that this was acceptable?

Obviously I haven’t read the autobiography, and I don’t plan to. I don’t have the need to know how to get rich quick by preaching the word of God. Maybe Jerry has a reasonable reason to include this disgusting story in his autobiography. Maybe he tells us how he came to God after being raised by this evil father of his. But, the description in the quote suggests that Jerry found the story amusing.

My point here is that Ian Frazier does a wonderful job in this short satire and I hope you enjoy it as well.

politics