[Sca-cooks] J. Swift's proposal (OOP, Off topic, longish, ranting)

[Laura C. Minnick]

Ll right, just a quick two pence...

Philippa Alderton wrote:

> Unless I'm very mistaken, I suspect the consensus of
> members of the Cook's List is that "A Modest Proposal"
> was intended by Mr Swift as satire, and is taken in
> the same vein.

I was required to read the text and write a paper about it in Hist 102
at the U of O. It has long been known and studied as a satirical text,
and was intended not only as satire but to shock the populace into
finding genuine solutions to the problem. No one has ever to my
knowledge approached this essay as anything but tongue in cheek.

As a side note, Dave Barry wrote a column a couple of weeks ago
advocating the use of a machine that burns slugs as fuel. A bunch of us
SLUG Queens are writing to twit him about it. Are we taking it
seriously? It's Dave Barry, for pete's sake! Of course we aren't! It's
just silly.

Swift is/was a well known satirist. It's just silly.

Still missing my favorite seneschal,
'Lainie