Farewell, sweet parody, we’ll miss thy sting
by Bryan Bland, reporter

   Oh, the lost art of the parody, how I mourn thee.

   For as long as there have been strong and questionable opinions voiced, there have been parodies to mock them.

   A fine example of a good parody would be Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. In this piece, he mockingly offers an original method for dealing with the poor children of Ireland by making them an industrial commodity.

   Sadly, modern parodies are harder to find. They exist, but with the invention of the Internet, they have been lost in the multitude of web sites.

   Since just about anyone can put up a web site, those of the most questionable mental stability can issue a rallying call for even the most insane of quests. So, a good parody site can no longer be accepted as a joke without a disclaimer in plain sight.

   For example www.banbreastfeeding.com, presently no longer online, was a parody originally created to mock Republicans. The site promoted wild claims that breastfeeding is an unhealthy activity that leads to alcoholism and any number of other social ills.
   The problem was the hoaxsters behind it all were too successful. Some people, after reading said site, accepted its claims as true and made the anti-breastfeeding cause their crusade.

   I first learned of the site when one of these people called my favorite radio station to share his cause on the air: thankfully, he was laughed off of the show.

   As with all of the strange beliefs held by U.S. citizens, it is no longer a given that people will laugh at the patently absurd.

   Gone it seems, at least in America, are the days when something too wild to be true could be naturally assumed false. If you can think of a crazy belief, there’s a good chance there’s someone in the United States who holds that belief to his or her heart like gospel.

   I would bet money on it.

   The American people have become so sensitive and “politically correct,” that when confronted with a parody, they cannot laugh for fear that it may not be a parody and they might be labeled ignorant for their amusement.

   It’s about time people realized that although everyone is entitled to his beliefs and opinions, people are not entitled to have those beliefs taken seriously by everyone else.

   Until people accept this concept, we may never be able to laugh unrestrainedly at a parody again.