There is enough funny stuff out there in real life that you don't have to make it up. Just spend some time on You-Tube...
I saw an article by Ian Squires on the Huffington Post (Link) that was making fun of a GOP Congressperson's effort to round Pi down to the integer 3.
"Congresswoman Martha Roby (R-Ala.) is sponsoring HR 205, The Geometric Simplification Act, declaring the Euclidean mathematical constant of pi to be precisely 3."
Given the current environment of how the GOP is dealing with education, this was too close to what could really be going on not to be taken seriously. So I search Thomas.Gov for HR 205. There does not appear to be an HR 205 in the current Congress. HR 205 in the 111th Congress had to do with the death tax.
Yeah, at one level it's funny to see the government try and take an irrational number and make it rational; but there are just too many collateral targets in between.
When calling the Congresswoman's office, I could tell the receptionist was really irritated to take the call when I mentioned this. After all, she is on the government dime and has had to take a lot of calls about this article. She said it was a prank. I mentioned that I was a Democrat with a Math degree who blogs on the Huffington Post and I wanted to do an article on this. I left my info for the press person who called me back about 10 minutes later.
The press person's response was - "yeah, he got us - ha, ha, ha". There really is no other response that a Congressional Office can give.
Talked to the press person for a few minutes as she was very nice to give me the time. We talked about how Alabama gets a really bad rap. If you have even been to Huntsville, you might notice that it populated by a bunch of rocket scientists - literally. It is where we build and design rockets.
There is a quiet bigotry we need to get past. It is killing our country. People from the coastal urban areas look down their noses at everyone else. I am tired of it. The article is a good cheap laugh, but at what cost?
Is it really humor when substantial numbers of people are calling Congressional Offices to check this out? Is it really cool to use an actual, if obscure, Member of Congress if you are writing satire? If you are going to write a fictitious bill, why not make the Congressperson have a really warped name from Alabama's 35th district (knowing it doesn't exist). Why not hold this until April First - where it is really fun, and not somewhat mean.
Martha Roby is a freshman Congressperson. She has enough on her plate. Looking at her bio (Link ) she doesn't seem half bad. She is a family person who is really involved in her community. Aside from what her politics are (that is between her and her district), she is the type of person we need to step up. She has degrees in both Music and Law. So if anyone is going know about ratios associated with Pythagorean Tuning, it is going to be this person. Music is mathematical at its core.
Taking cheap shots at real people widens the gap a little more between the Left (those on the right are stupid) and the Right (those on the left are stuck-up snobs). That means more people in the middle look at both ends and think - they are all nuts.
Why should anyone get involved in the political process?
1 comment:
So I'm about a year late in my comment. I wonder if anybody, ever, will see this. =)
First of all, I was shocked when that article went viral like it did, just as I was shocked that so many people believed it (disheartening indications about Americans' gullibility?). But, I considered the fact it was a kind of crappy thing to do to Rep. Roby, who I had never heard of before I wrote this. I didn't want to just make up a fake person; rightly or wrongly, I believe using a real person is part of what makes it funny. And, yeah, a brief look at the positions Rep. Roby had taken convinced me this woman is just flat out bad for the country, and I did not mind doing this to her (it was so long ago that I honestly can't remember, I think she might have been, for instance, one of the people in Congress claiming, literally, that scientists of the world are engaging in a gigantic conspiracy to make the "global warming hoax"). So, yeah, sorry, but not really?
Ian
Post a Comment