Limerick Ode To Planned Ignorance
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Planned ignorance, such is the scheme
That conservatives love — what a dream:
Withhold info that’s needed
And ought to be heeded.
That’s the key to get wins for their team.
Whitewashing textbooks and refusing to allow the CDC to study gun violence are but two examples.
Every so often, one of my essays ends up in a college textbook. It’s a delightful honor, of course. But I’m always just a bit freaked out by the thought of someone writing an essay analyzing one of my essays.
My latest textbook appearance is in Laughing Matters, a “comic rhetoric” textbook by Stanford University’s Marvin Diogenes. It’s a great book, and I’m really proud to have a humor column (actually a satirical music lesson contract between parents and child) included in the “forensic rhetoric” section, along with pieces by Chekhov, Benjamin Franklin, and Ian Frazier.
And happily, it’s NOT a what-not-to-do example.
Mad Kane (Madeleine Begun Kane) is a writer, musician, and "recovering lawyer." She won the Robert Benchley Society Award For Humor and enjoys writing limericks, song parodies, and current events haiku.
You can email her at madkane@madkane.com, visit her non-political humor blog, or stop by her home page.
