John Young cypherpunk poetry (about Greplaw Interview discussion)
John Young, the cypherpunk poet wrote a poem (posted to a mailing list) about the fallout and arguments from Mike Godwin's actions and my Greplaw Interview. I found it amusing enough to repost, with a rough English translation of the poetry (what other blogs have, not merely cypherpunk poetry, but annotated cypherpunk poetry?)
The basic idea of the poem is John Young saying he enjoys a good flame-war, so people calling on me and Mike Godwin to be nice to each other should just shut-up, as flames are much more laudable (note the poetry often acts to obscure an idea which would be very debatable if stated in clear prose).
| YOUNGLISH | ENGLISH |
| According to wise ones here Seth and Mike have become hollow versions of their formerly entertaining personas, | Seth and Mike [Godwin] are now shells of their former flamer selves |
| or appear to have transmogrified into silly pretenders of being more mature (spit) and above the fray (puke), | they've become old and boring, the fuddy-duddies |
| with both issuing unbelievable condescensions as if unctioning vapidly, vacuously for the record (gag) | trying to appear dignified as if they care about their image |
| rather than continue in their raw-meated, net-loosened all too long professional-career tied-tongues. | instead of the glorious flaming they'd do when freed from the constraints of appearing "professional" |
| Hardly worth reading, these calls for forgetting the audacious, literary, eloquent enviable Seth and Mike, good reading to be reminded of what they did and can again do best: | Forgive-and-forget is dull, give me a good flame-war |
| spout the hardly spitten out loud in public, without calculated beforehand and afterhand apologies, | speak your mind without thinking about it |
| no shading the lingo for impressing judgmental argumentators and writ-job dispensers and reputation mark-uppers, | not being sensitive for the sake of libel or people who care about reputation |
| no fearing of public resource squandering litigation (loogey), | or being sued |
| no hoping, angling for erasure, faint-hearted and auto-second-guessed, | or taking back what you said |
| of passionate outbursts -- | |
| shit, bloviated judges do that to set the record straight (rip-tongues) | Pompous judges take-back what they say |
| after Janusing their inchoacies at decrypting-genius stenographers. | after altering their blather when it's figured-out by court reporters |
| Out damn decorum, | Don't give a damn |
| keep that the poker-face lying record | about what was said |
| in monocular penitentiary of justicican halls | [something about one-eyed (connecting to poker-face), imprisonment - I can't translate this line, particularly "justicican"] |
| where pantopticonism terrifies self-over-correcting wutzes. | where everything-being-seen scares fussy wimps. |
| Up incorrigibles, | Praise the "unreasonable", |
| beyond-median-spiritedly, | those who are ill-tempered and |
| wine-driven-oracular mostso. | uninhibited truth-tellers, praise them the most. |
dude! never mind berkmann fellowship. you, sir, should be president! Take Dean's advice, and run for office.
Nonsequitor, but did you see this one? http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/nation/2773445