Sunday, July 20, 2008

BREAKING: SATIRE TO SUE NEW YORKER

By Steve Young






http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In an unprecedented legal move that should shakeup the dictionary industry already under siege by critics and linguists, Satire - the word and its definition - has filed suit against The New Yorker for classifying its cartoon depiction of Barack and Michele Obama as satire.


"Words can no longer stand by and let the media abuse them without retribution," said Satire's lawyer, Noah Webster VI. "Words have rights too. But more importantly, they have real meaning and represent to people the truth. The courts have said so."


Webster, who successfully defended Truth in "Cheney vs Last Throes," "McDonald's vs Health" and the landmark, "Funny vs Dane Cook," is suing The New Yorker under the "Is" law - named after former President Bill Clinton's "It depends what the meaning of 'is' is" triangulation of the linking verb in his attempt to weasel out of an admission of an affair - which set a legal standard for words and phrases, legislating proper usage and criminalizing most perversions of proper terminology.


Not since the class action law suit enjoined by the words "Independent," "Logic" and "Journalist" against Bill O'Reilly, has the meaning and intention of words been challenged in the courts.


Webster, who once represented the estate of George Orwell against the Bush White House for plagiarism, argues that Satire, like most any word, should be given proper protection due its long-held definition.


"We're not dealing with a thesaurus here. We're talking about specific accuracy, not lazy simile."


The American Heritage® Dictionary defines Satire as "a literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit." The New Yorker issued a statement saying that they will aggressively fight the action. "I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say," said editor David Remnick. "What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama's — both Obamas' — past, and their politics."


"First of all, if they were literally holding up a mirror, the cartoon would show itself backwards," said Webster. "There's no evidence of that. Even so, no where in its definition does it say the simply repeating a vice or folly makes for satire," said Webster. "You've got to at least attempt to lampoon the so-called imaginings. If anything, the cartoon only magnified the folly. In effect, or affect - I'm never sure which of the two applies - it becomes an accomplice to the original corruption of the truth."


"In the end," said Webster, "I believe Truth will win out. It always does.


"Don't take me literally," he added.


Developing

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