After all, it’s 22 years past the title year of George Orwell’s 1984, and none of that stuff he described has happened. Brainwashed masses held in check by threats of violence and manipulated by government? Oh please. That’s about as likely as the old Dick Tracy comic strip that used to predict radios small enough to wear on your wrist.
That being the case, Static was ecstatic to see that somebody’s finally gotten a sense of humor about this situation, even if it is a bunch of pinkos. As a takeoff on the do-not-call list, a group called ProgressNow has started a national No-Spy list. Don’t want the government listening in on your pitiful phone calls even though to do so could help Save the World? (They hate us for our freedoms, you know.) Then sign your wimpy name to the list, to be delivered to U.S. Senate members during hearings on Bush’s domestic spying programs.
Think of all the other wonderful applications of this idea. A national No-Profiteering list, which would keep the oil companies from charging enlistees jacked-up prices because of natural disasters. Even better – a No-Invasion list: If enough citizens signed up, their country would be removed from the list of targets for peremptory, we-know-you’re-hiding-something-even-if-we-can’t-find-it attacks by American troops in our name. Sort of like an Adopt-a-Whale program, only this would protect endangered humans.
The no-call list itself, by the way, is a great invention. Too bad that the law hasn’t stopped telemarketers who’ve been ringing up charges on Static’s cell phone on behalf of The Dallas Morning News, trying to offer us wonderful deals on Snooze-scriptions. Ditto the collection companies whose computers call every day trying to get Static to pay bills that somebody else owes. Honest.
Then There’s the No-Clue List
Not that the No-Spy list was the strangest news of the day. That honor might go to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which allegedly wants to require all its employees and subsidiaries (including the National Weather Service) to get approval from the agency big dogs before they can respond to any contact from the news media.
This is great. Static always hated weather stories and now, it appears, might never have to do another one. “Yes, this is Fort Worth Weekly calling. That looks like a mighty big tornado just west of downtown. What can you tell us about it? … You have to call headquarters first? You’ll get back to us next week? We need to file a written request on newspaper letterhead under the ‘open’ records law? And agree to have our conversation recorded for terrorism control purposes? O-kay!”
