A Pizza by Any Other Name..
A Pizza by Any Other Name�
As I’ve said before, and will continue to say for the foreseeable future, the best thing about writing humor and satire is that I don’t have to make anything up because the world around us is a never-ending source of material.
Lest you think that the has a monopoly on “political correctness” and similar forms of institutional stupidity, consider the following item from the Fox News web site [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206196,00.html]:
TEHRAN, – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as “pizzas” which will now be known as “elastic loaves,” state media reported Saturday.
The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or PersianAcademy, the IRNA official news agency reported.
The academy has introduced more than 2,000 words as alternatives for some of the foreign words that have become commonly used in , mostly from Western languages. The government is less sensitive about Arabic words, because the Koran is written in Arabic.
Among other changes, a “chat” will become a “short talk” and a “cabin” will be renamed a “small room,” according to official Web site of the academy.
Not wishing to be outdone by , the United States Congress met in emergency session to meet what one unofficial source identified as “the biggest cause for concern since the ‘Missile Gap’ of the early 1960s.”
Washington – The United States Congress met in an extraordinary joint session Saturday evening to debate measures that will “protect the American leader in the area of international ‘Newspeak,’ rhetoric, metaphor, and obscuration.”
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) opened the session by ordering the House Chaplin to cease using the word “god” in favor or “major and minor deities” or “supreme being.” Hastert then opened the floor to proposals from the members.
Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) rose to suggest that, concerning members of congress, the use of the term “bribery” be replaced with “aggressive pursuit of campaign donations.” Speaker Hastert was forced to wait for over 5 minutes until the thunderous voices of support for Jefferson’s recommendation subsided to a level below the pain threshold.
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and his nephew Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) stood to offer a suggestion but, due to their slurred speech, its nature remained unknown. Speaker Hastert, invoking the spirit of bipartisanism, ordered the clerk to “make a wild guess as to what they were talking about” for later inclusion in the Congressional Record.
Presumptive Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY), in a bid to demonstrate her centrist political philosophy, suggested that the word “democrat” no longer be used in the same sentence with “Cynthia McKinney” and that the congresswoman be identified as Rep. Cynthia McKinney (Idiot-GA). Sen. Clinton’s motion was approved by a unanimous voice vote.
