READERS NEED TO KNOW…

…about this (a trademark registration from the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office):

and this:

malt-o-cod condemnation

Comments

  1. Ha! Many on the internet will have heard of Poe’s Law: It is impossible to parody an extremist point of view (Creationism, right-wing nutjobbery, tree-hugging environmental extremism, etc.) in such a way that no one will mistake it for the real deal, or in such a way that no actual extremist could hold such an outlandish opinion.

    May I humbly posit Dr. Boli’s Corollary to Poe’s Law: It is impossible to parody or satirize advertising or snake-oil salesmanship in such a way that no actual huckster would ever stoop that low.

    • Dr. Boli says:

      There is also what Calvin Trillin called the (Harry) Golden Rule: “It’s very difficult, when commenting on events of the day, to invent something so bizarre that it might not actually come to pass while your piece is still on the presses.” It was named for Harry Golden, a North Carolina columnist and civil-rights crusader. He noticed that white people in the South seemed not to mind standing up with black people, but only sitting down, so he write a satirical column suggesting that North Carolina schools be integrated by taking out the chairs. He called it the Harry Golden Plan for Vertical Integration. Shortly afterward, a North Carolina library was ordered by federal courts to allow “colored” patrons to use its facilities, and it responded by taking out the chairs.

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