For pranks and parody, what is fair game and what is out-of-bounds?

Question to chew on: 
In both pranks and parody, what is fair game and what is out-of-bounds?


I am thinking, here, about the recent Cover Story/April Fools parody found in the April 6 edition of The Seattle Weekly: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2011-04-06/food/eat-lou-kohl/  Please read the "Eat Lou Kohl" Weekly article first., and then I would like to encourage you to share your opinion/viewpoints in the comments for this post. 


In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to transparently discuss my own initial thoughts when I first read this article.


I first heard about the story from my friend, Bill, who had said "you HAVE to read the "Eat Lou Kohl" cover story in this week's Seattle Weekly."  (I now wonder if Bill was trying to set me up for this April 1 gag, or if he may also have fallen victim to it.) In my defense, and in Bill's, my April 1 radar had shut down by April 6 - Mike Seely and the Seattle Weekly were very tricky in that the article appeared 5 days AFTER April 1.


So, when I read the piece. I have to admit that I was sucked in. It was very entertaining (even before I realized it was a gag,) because the contrived character of Lou Kohl is such an unusual/quirky personality.


By the time I got to the list of A- and B-list celebrities who were to be attending one of these Dirt Farm events, I realized this had to be a gag.


There are other examples of Pranks or Parodies that I would like to discuss here. For example, I only recently developed a fake Facebook profile for G. Gordon Liddy. I included as much accurate historical/biographical info as I could find about Liddy's life into the Bio/Profile section of my fake FB page.


I have other examples that I can share with you. If you are interested, please just respond  via email, or like this entry on my Facebook page. 


Please share your own insights? 


Thanks,
Greg

A Response to Rants Over Subsidies for Renewables

This is from a post by Craig Shields from http://2greenenergy.com

Late-Night Radio Show Caller Rants Over Subsidies for Renewables

March 24, 2011 in Renewables - Politics by Craig Shields

... The highlight of the show for me was a caller attacking clean energy based on the fact that the government subsidizes it. When I pointed out that fossil fuels get 12 times the amount of subsidies as clean energy, he responded that since clean energy is only 2% of the total grid-mix, the subsidies it receives represent four times those of fossil fuels per installed megawatt. In other words, because clean energy hasn’t happened, there is no reason to make it happen.

I asked the caller if he happened to be a hard-line libertarian who believes government has no business effecting changes in the public landscape.  When he said no, I indicated that his position strikes me as considerably shortsighted, in that it employs a kind of circular logic. It’s like saying that we shouldn’t have built the Internet in the 1990s because there were a only few people online; his argument is really no better than that.

And in the case of renewable energy, I pointed out, we’re talking about a subject that really doesn’t compare well to the Internet; the imperative to move to clean energy goes well beyond the convenience and niceties of our modern age. Whether your concern is long-term environmental damage, national security, lung disease, the ballooning national debt (just take your choice), we are dealing with real dangers here that government, I believe, is duty-bound to address.

I also note that the subsidies for oil have been in place for 80 – 90 years — long past the point that the industry became incredibly profitable.  Yet Washington is so completely bought off by the oil companies and the 7000 lobbyists they employ that it simply doesn’t have the integrity to bring this disgusting state of affairs to a close; this is rank corruption in its purest and most obvious form.  By contrast, you’ll have a hell of a hard time finding an advocate of clean energy who thinks renewables should be subsidized through the year 2190 — and on indefinitely.