Psychohazard Premier

War on Santa

2006-06-01T14:10:00.000-04:00

Go to summary

Santa Claus is a jolly figure who brings toy to all the good christian children of the world, or so says his propaganda.
Johnathan is a good little christian boy in Somalia, do you think Santa will bring him an X-Box this year? No, that would be cruel, because Johnathan has no electricity and starves 9 months out of the year. Do you think Santa will instead bring him a year 's supply of food? Or even just a pump for the well?
No, Becasue Santa cares more for rich kids, good or bad, than he does poor kids.
This demigod chooses to inject billions of dollars into rich western economies, while flying over millions of starving children to do it. This bears repeating: Santa actively ignores the sufferings and impending deaths of millions of children.
This is nothing less than a crime against humanity, and he does this on Christmas day!
Put blunty, this guy needs to be brought down, but how?You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
Faith, above all, is the terrain on which we battle. We must tear apart Santa's unseen campaing of injustice. We must deny him the faith of his beneficiaries. We must out him as a fraud, publicly, to children. The chilrden will cry, they will lament the loss of their imaginary friend, and worry about the fate of next year's presents. They will begin to distrust the calming tales of their parents, and resent the past naughty/nice emotional manipulation. They will, with our help, grow supiscious of the perversions of fat men in red suits.
The intent of all this, of course, is to piss off their parents.
Parents like their kids to be imaginative, and to grow up like they did. They appreciate the edge that the naughty/nice list gives them in November and December. Most of all, every decent parent wants their children to be emotionally well adjusted.
By traumatically disrupting the conscious and subconscious mythos of their children, we threaten parents' confidence in that emotional stability. We will make it clear that these disruptions will continue until 'Santa' tends to the needs of impoverished chlidren globally. If we can get little Suzie iwantapony to wet her bed every night for two weeks, we can be confident that our anti-Santa message has been recieved.
This may seem unwaranted, but this is a war. We must remember that Suzie and her parents do not deserve these comforting myths while little Johnathan is lying infected and starving in some mudhole.
We have a duty to destroy Santa at every turn. Remember that many of these kids can read. Flyers can be printed, and signs posted in high traffic areas. In most western countries, you have a right to protest near schools and on bus routes. Short videos can be made and aired on public access television.
Remember that every child you reach may tell hundreds of classmates. This should be encouraged, but care must be taken that the re-tellings are as traumatic as possible. I would tentatively suggest including the message that anyone who still believes in Santa Claus is stupid or babyish.

Remember:

Santa perpetuates the global divide between rich and poor.
Santa is only as real as western childrens' belief in him.
By denying western children such psychological comforts, their parents can be coerced into solving the problem of global poverty.
If needed other psychological operations against rich western children can be activated. Possible messages include:
(Note: whenever possible, graphic photos should be shown.)

Obviously, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are also lies.
What happens to a person in a bad car accident.
What happened during the holocaust.
What an aborted fetus looks like.
Historical evils of the area's dominant religions, or compelling (to children) refutations of them.

We must promote harsh truths until the severe harshness of reality is corrected. When the poor can live comfortably, the rich can have comforting myths.
The complacency and misanthropy of 'Santa' must not be allowed to continue eternally. If not now, when?
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
If you needed any more convincing, these are the words of Santa's greatest propagandist. Hitler only wanted ten thousand years, Santa is ten times worse than Hitler.

John Titor

2006-03-23T05:24:00.000-05:00

Although there is debate over the exact date it started, on November 02, 2000, a person calling themselves Timetravel_0, and later John Titor, started posting on a public forum that he was a time traveler from the year 2036.
[...]
On March 21, 2001, John Titor told us he would be leaving our time and returning to 2036. After that, he was never heard from again. Speculation and investigation about who John Titor was and why he was online continues to this day.
Although it may be easy to dismiss all this as science fiction, most people who read his posts agree that there is something very haunting about John Titor and what he said. In addition, and open to more debate, he also made a series of predictions and comments that eerily seem to be coming true.

http://www.johntitor.com

Dorodango

2006-03-16T02:30:00.000-05:00

"...they become absorbed in forming a sphere, and they put all their energy into polishing the ball until it sparkles. The dorodango soon becomes the child's greatest treasure. "
Japanese Mudballs

What do these words mean to you?

2006-03-13T18:53:00.000-05:00

Radio Controlled Centipede Steam Engine
Believe it or not, those words actually go together in that order.

This is the kind of thing you'd expect to come out of a parallel universe.

Beware Panopticon Theology

2006-03-05T23:13:00.000-05:00

Over two hundred year ago, Jeremy Bentham invented the Panopticon. It was a prison structure that allowed secret surveilance, in order to minimize the number of guards required. A prisoner would never know if he was being watched by a guard in the central tower, and so they would always maintain good behavior.
The ultimate goal of the Panopticon was to subject prisoners to a percieved omniscience. This 'Godlike' all-seeing-eye and corresponding punishment would keep people in line, but is God like that? I don't think so.
First of all, this kind of constant surveilance is extremely dehumanizing. It's the kind of thing that they would have done to criminals, hundreds of years ago. The idea that someone is always out there watching you and constantly waiting for you to make a mistake so they can hold you responsible makes it impossible to relax, to be fully human. Humans need privacy, and we are smart enough to give each other privacy, God is smart enough too.
Further, this model tends to discourage advancement to higher stages of moral development. Young children often conclude that wrong actions are things they get punished for, as they develop they come to understand that an action might still be wrong, even if no one sees, and even if they are not punished.
The concept that God is always watching and that you will be held acountable is a factor that enables stagnation at this low level of moral reasoning, well into adulthood. People must be inspired to find more elegant ways to discover morality.
Lastly, this completely ignores God's forgiveness and love. God is not a prison guard, and that is not an image that sould be promoted. Panopticon Theology is inherently adversarial, and God is not our adversary.

Radical Islam

2006-03-01T23:51:00.000-05:00

A group of Muslims calling itself Al-jabru ("restoration" in Arabic) vows to bring about a return to a period of Islamic global dominance. Inspired by the writings of the ancient teacher al-Khwarizmi, the group is gathering strength by teaching advanced subjects in the madrassas, and even actively translating western technical documents into arabic.
"We call upon all muslims to ijtihad, in this way we shall surpass the west."

Meme

2006-02-19T16:38:00.000-05:00

"I support President Bush's goal of spreading Liberal Democracy"

What is your most dangerous idea?

2006-01-04T00:57:00.000-05:00

The Edge World Question Center asked 117 thinkers What is your most dangerous idea? and got 12 big pages of awesome answers.

Destroy the Customer

2005-11-30T22:56:00.000-05:00

In order to have a successful internet business, people have to use your service. The most successful businesses merely provide a system to take advantage of user generated content. Many online games, Google, Blogger, and eBay are examples of this.
Ideally, your service will actively encourage people to create new and interesting content. To do this, you must present them with an adversary, or become one. Games offer a steady stream of opponents, whether they be other players or computer controlled. Discussion boards thrive on conflict, even Google itself is only a partial solution to the information overload which its own service fosters.
In general, humans are most likely to react to danger, whether it is real or percieved. Therefore, to succeed in business, you should try to destroy your customers.

This needs to be understood as a basic component in any customer service and marketing strategy.

Thank you for visiting my Website.

Queenlessness

2005-09-18T14:22:00.000-04:00

Humans are naturally hive animals.

Many, Many things affect personality, our genes of course, and countless environment factors.
Birth order has been shown to affect personality, First born children tend to be natural leaders, middle borns negotiate, and youngest children are entertainers.

In an insect hive, raising larva in different ways will yeild insects with essentially equivalent DNA taking on different physical attributes and behaviors, based on the needs of the hive.

A human hive is similar, children repond to events and conditions of their childhood by taking on different psychological traits, and perhaps even altering their metabolism and muscle tone.
A group of humans trying to survive will benefit from having a diverse set of particular kinds of people. We need risk takers and thoughtful strategists, packrats and clean freaks, peacemakers and agressive defenders. In a natural society, these roles would play off of each other to form a balanced, healthy hive.

It is possible that many traits our society considers maladaptive would serve important functions in a hive, or perhaps some people are insane because our society does not provide the proper simulus for their psychological development to complete their growth into an ancient role that they have been triggered to fill.

If your tribe lacks a muse, your prophet will start hearing voices.

Authoritarian Pacifism

2005-09-09T00:57:00.000-04:00

A form of government that does not perform any violence whatsoever in enforcing it's laws.
This system eliminates the need for prisons, and even police as we know them. The government is absolutely pacifist.

It is Authoritarian in that:

It spies on its citzens at its discretion, which is often.
It produces massive propaganda campaigns.
It has numerous laws on all manner of behavior
It provides 'bread and circuses' to pacify the people

Being pacifist, it does not punish or jail criminals. It publicises their crimes, and makes the information easily available. Social stigma, shaped by propaganda, encourages people to obey the law. Known criminals (and their associates) would face tighter surveilance. Vigilanteeism may occur, but it will be a crime, and will be be reported in context. It will be moderated by it's own possible social stigma. (Or Honor?)

Suspects would still have the benefit of trials before any crimes were put on their records, however they may be convicted even if they refuse to attend their trial. (Since their presence cannot be compelled.) The standard of proof may be lower, 'preponderance of the evidence' rather than 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Criminal cases would always be open to re-trial based on new evidence.

Gravity Does Not Exist

2005-09-02T02:13:00.000-04:00

Space is Repulsive.

The theory of gravity is that everything that has mass attracts everything else, probably because of the curvature of spacetime.
The truth is that matter partly shields the repulsive force that space exterts. We are pushed towards objects because we are unshielded on the opposite side. The unshielded repulsive force is extremely great, but since it comes from all directions, it only has influence where it is partly shielded. Larger objects provide better shields, Both because they have more mass to stop the force, and take up a wider area of our exposure to the repulsive force. (the force of 'gravity' dissipates with distance according to the inverse of the square of the distance, just like apparent area does.)
On the surface of a planet, We have 'below' us a shield thousands of miles thick, taking up nearly half our field of view, above us, the sky, pressing down on us.

Your Organs Are Backwards

2005-08-26T05:13:00.000-04:00

You have situs inversus.

Or maybe you don't.
Your real problem is that your perception of left and right are backwards. Your internal model of the world is a mirror image of what the world actually is. What you call left to right, the rest of the world calls right to left.
Early in life you learned that sounds in this ear and touches on this side correlate to things you see on this side. Likewise things on the other side go together, but you got it ever so slightly wrong, right from the beginning. How could you be corrected?

Fortunately, it is not a problem that your mind is backwards.

A Math Problem

2005-08-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

Imagine you had an infinitely long, infinitely thin string with two ends, you take the tangle of string and put it inside a box, while leaving the two ends on the outside.

The Problem:
Define an infinitely long path between two points that stays within a finite volume. The path canot intersect itself. The location of each point on the path must be a function of the distance along it from either of the two points.

This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself.

2005-08-12T03:45:00.000-04:00

In Dog we Trust

2005-08-05T23:21:00.000-04:00

There was a story in the paper about a woman who left 200 million dollars to her dog. What a waste.

Or is it?

presumably, the money is at least in a savings account somewhere. This means that it is gaining interest by being loaned out to other people. Those people are putting it to good use, enough to justify paying interest back to the Dog.
Given the size of the fortune, it's possible that it's in a professionally managed trust, which yields an even higher return. This means that the money is going to places that a trained analyst thinks will use the money best. If the Dog has a good tax attorney, there may even be an element of charitable giving.
Would her human trust-fund grandchildren have used the money so responsibly?

Perhaps the best use of any given dollar is to put it into an account that invests with an eye towards both finacial gain and the social good, a kind of venture philanthropy for the small time investor. What if you could send a dollar to a charity knowing that it would not merely be spent, but responsibly loaned out, to maximum benefit? What if you could go to your favorite charity for a loan, thereby both getting your funding, and knowing that your interest payments would be positively re-used?

If you want to let the market sort out the good, and just send money to an account that invests for financial gain, I volunteer mine.

The Water Bearer

2005-07-30T00:25:00.000-04:00

Kali Is the Hindu Goddess of destruction, the consort of Shiva. Skulls, cemeteries, and blood are associated with her worship. She is black and emaciated.

The Goddess Kali was born on February 17th. Kali is an Aquarian. This must not be ignored...

Audioconsumer v1.3

2005-07-28T01:10:00.000-04:00

Audioconsumer allows you to obtain pristine digital copies of songs from noisy analog sources.

Standard Features:

Interfaces to AM and FM Radio tuner hardware (see compatibility list)
Fingerprints songs, and compares fingerprint to database to identify the song based on previous recordings.
Compares multiple recordings of the same song. (They must have the same fingerprint, even slightly different versions will not work.) By taking multiple samples, Audioconsumer can separate the song from any noise, whether from the radio, vinyl records, or even background noise from secondhand recordings.
Identification of compression codec and compensation of artifacts based on uncompressed versions.
Lossless recompression for most codecs. This is useful if you have a CD burnt from a compressed copy. (e.g. iTunes)
Automatic naming of songs from any online streams that include filenames.
Time distortion compensation corrects some variation in playback speed, even if it variesover the course of the song. This is most useful for vinyl recordings.

New in Version 1.3:

New algorithm finds the 'best agreement' between files for each segment, and ignores noisy files that are 'out of agreement'. This replaces the simplistic 'averaging' algorithm, and let you add even very low quality samples without adding noise.
Some scripting that allows completely automated naming of songs based on playlist information from radio station websites. This will only work on some radio stations.
Partial fingerprints allows samples of any part of the song (as small as 15 seconds!) to be identified and contribute to the comparison algorithm. This also allows automatic song naming using 'intro samples' from pay sites. (This is slow, and bandwidth intensive.)

Moral Reasoning

2005-07-26T11:53:00.000-04:00

There are a number of ways to encode behavioral modification statements.
Here I use murder as an example of an undesired behavior.

Moral: Killing is wrong.
Imperative: Do not kill.
Value-based: I value human life.
Imperative value based: Value human life.
Personal conviction: I will not kill.
Appeal to compassion: Killing causes suffering.
Creating a positive ambition: Is that what you want to be? [a murderer?]

Others:

You have no right to kill.
People have a right to live.
killing is 'disadvantageous'. (this can be based on legal ramifications, possible retribution, karma, or implicit psychological harm to the murderer.)
Killing violates the social contract.
I need to stop killing. (Generally this is more applicable to habitual vices like smoking.)
Killing is illegal (Note, this is distinct from the 'disadvantageous' argument, as this advocates following the law for the law's sake, where that was focused on punishment.)
Killing is a sin.
Killing is repulsive. (disgusting, gross)
Killing will not solve any problems.

There are of course many, many ways to get the same message accross. It is interesting to think about which are most popular, and which are most effective.

Extreme Rock Paper Scissors Team Game

2005-07-24T21:44:00.000-04:00

A high-stakes game of surveillance, deception, and intrigue.

This is a simple game to be played by two teams of approximately equal size, at least two people per team, but probably five is needed for things to be interesting. This is a zero-sum game, that is, it has a winner and a loser. The game will be most fun if there is a prize of some kind for the winning team. Each game will have a set duration, and this can be of any length. It should probably last at least half an hour, the most interesting games will last for months or years. There is no upper limit on team size, the game duration, or the prize.

The goal of the game is to win an ordinary game of Rock, Paper, Scissors played between representatives of the two teams at the end of the team game. The teams may use any method they wish to choose who their representatives are, and what they are going to throw. However, the throw of the representative is final, regardless of the team's stated choice, so representatives should be chosen carefully. In the event of a tie, the final match is re-played until there is a victor. Teams should take care to prepare a number of successive throws.

The Fun Part

At any time before (or during) the final match, the teams may attempt to spy on each other. By determining what the other team is going to throw, they can throw the superior object. At the same time they may deliver misinformation to the opposing team, thereby controlling their opponents choice. The difficulty (and fun) lies in determining what information to believe, and what information to let leak out.

The Stakes

The complexity of the game will be related to it's prize, duration, and team size. Given enough time and enough motivation, resourceful teams will invent fabulous ways to observe and mislead their opponents. It think it would be interesting, and somewhat less bloody, if nations used this method to resolve conflicts. Interestingly, the spy game would be largely unchanged.

Cows are evil

2005-07-22T14:34:00.000-04:00

Most complex life forms on this planet survive off of the life of other living things. As we pass through various reincarnations, we eventually reach a more virtuous state. We learn not to rely on the death of others for our own survival. Plants are the most spiritually advanced form of life, because they derive their energy from the sun, rather than the life force of other entities. The highest forms of plant life are fruit bearing plants, as they take nothing, yet freely provide food in a way that doe s not require death.
Herbivores such as cows are evil, as they destroy and consume innocent, virutous beings. omnivores and carnivores are more virtuous as they take energy from entities that have themselves taken life.

Food For Peace

2005-07-21T23:52:00.000-04:00

Condiments are the basis of civilization.
You might think it's something else, like law, religion, agriculture, or family, but this is not the case. Humans are an argumentative lot, and weare especially nasty when we are under pressure. One of the best and most common ways to both relieve the psychological pressure, and improve personal relationships is eating together.
This stems from two basic physiological and psychological facts. We instinctively build friendly bonds with people we eat with, and having eaten, we are more relaxed. A hungry lonely lion is inherently more dangerous than a sleepy, well fed pride.

What are the foods that define americana? The hamburger, the hot dog, pizza. These are the foods we build our memories around because these are the foods we can share with the most other people. If you and your father have different tastes in food, when you go to a ballpark he might get his with everything and you might have just some mustard, but what you remember is you and you dad having hot dogs at the game. Condiments make it possible. With a little planning, even strangers with wildly different tastes can share the same pizza.
I propose a project: Food For Peace, an organization that delivers humanitarian food aid, with a broad range of condiments, to war-torn areas of the world. By shipping a wide array of food items, and an even wider array of condiments, we will make possible, even likely, for members of various factions to share meals together.

Alternative Lyrics

2005-07-20T19:33:00.000-04:00

I'm an organ donor short and stout,
dead on arrival, there is no doubt,
If you need a new lung don't you pout,
Just rip me open and pull one out.

August 1990

1990-08-31T23:51:00.000-04:00

August 1990 is the month I use to hold stories that are too big to go on the front page.

This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself.

1990-08-08T20:54:00.000-04:00

By David Moser

This is the first sentence of this story. This is the second sentence. This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself. This sentence is questioning the intrinsic value of the first two sentences. This sentence is to inform you, in case you haven't already realized it, that this is a self-referential story, that is, a story containing sentences that refer to their own structure and function. This is a sentence that provides an ending to the first paragraph.

This is the first sentence of a new paragraph in a self-referential story. This sentence is introducing you to the protagonist of the story, a young boy named Billy. This sentence tells you that Billy is blond and blue-eyed and American and twelve years old and strangling his mother. This sentence comments on the awkward nature of the self-referential narrative form while recognizing the strange and playful detachment it affords the writer. As if illustrating the point made by the last sentence, this sentence reminds us, with no trace of facetiousness, that children are a precious gift from God and that the world is a better place when graced by the unique joys and delights they bring to it.

This sentence describes Billy's mother's bulging eyes and protruding tongue and makes reference to the unpleasant choking and gagging noises she's making. This sentence makes the observation that these are uncertain and difficult times, and that relationships, even seemingly deep-rooted and permanent ones, do have a tendency to break down.

Introduces, in this paragraph, the device of sentence fragments. A sentence fragment. Another. Good device. Will be used more later.

This is actually the last sentence of this story but has been placed here by mistake. This is the title of this story, which is also found several times within the story itself. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself in his bed transformed into a gigantic insect. This sentence informs you that the preceding sentence is from another story entirely (a better one, it must be noted) and has no place at all in this particular narrative. Despite the claims of the preceding sentence, this sentence feels compelled to inform you that the story you are reading is in actuality ``The Metamorphosis'' by Franz Kafka, and that the sentence referred to by the preceding sentence is the only sentence which does indeed belong to the story. This sentence overrides the preceding sentence by informing the reader (poor, confused wretch) that this piece of literature is actually the Declaration of Independence, but that the author, in a show of extreme negligence (if not malicious sabotage), has so far failed to include even one single sentence from that stirring document, although he has condescended to use a small sentence fragment, namely, ``When in the course of human events,'' embedded in quotation marks near the end of a sentence. Showing a keen awareness of the boredom and downright hostility of the average reader with regard to the pointless conceptual games indulged in by the preceding sentences, this sentence returns us at last to the scenario of the story by asking the question, ``Why is Billy strangling his mother?'' This sentence attempts to shed some light on the question posed by the preceding sentence but fails. This sentence, however, succeeds, in that it suggests a possible incestuous relationship between Billy and his mother and alludes to the concomitant Freudian complications an astute reader will immediately envision. Incest. The unspeakable taboo. The universal prohibition. Incest. And notice the sentence fragments? Good literary device. Will be used more later.

This sentence is the first sentence in a new paragraph. This is the last sentence in a new paragraph.

This sentence can serve as either the beginning of the paragraph or the end, depending on its placement. This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself. This sentence raises a serious objection to the entire class of self-referential sentences that merely comment on their own function or placement within the story (e.g., the preceding four sentences), on the grounds that they are monotonously predictable, unforgivably self-indulgent, and merely serve to distract the reader from the real subject of this story, which at this point seems to concern strangulation and incest and who knows what other delightful topics. The purpose of this sentence is to point out that the preceding sentence, while not itself a member of the class of self-referential sentences it objects to, nevertheless also serves merely to distract the reader from the real subject of this story, which actually concerns Gregor Samsa's inexplicable transformation into a gigantic insect (despite the vociferous counterclaims of other well-meaning although misinformed sentences). This sentence can serve as either the beginning of the paragraph or the end, depending on its placement.

This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself. This is almost the title of this story, which is found only once in the story itself. This sentence regretfully states that up to this point the self-referential mode of narrative has had a paralyzing effect on the actual progress of the story itself---that is, these sentences have been so concerned with analyzing themselves and their role in the story that they have failed by and large to perform their function as communicators of events and ideas that one hopes coalesce into a plot, character development, etc.---in short, the very raisons d'être of any respectable, hardworking sentence in the midst of a piece of compelling prose fiction. This sentence in addition points out the obvious analogy between the plight of these agonizingly self-aware sentences and similarly afflicted human beings, and it points out the analogous paralyzing effects wrought by excessive and tortured self-examination.

The purpose of this sentence (which can also serve as a paragraph) is to speculate that if the Declaration of Independence had been worded and structured as lackadaisically and incoherently as this story has been so far, there's no telling what kind of warped libertine society we'd be living in now or to what depths of decadence the inhabitants of this country might have sunk, even to the point of deranged and debased writers constructing irritatingly cumbersome and needlessly prolix sentences that sometimes possess the questionable if not downright undesirable quality of referring to themselves and they sometimes even become run-on sentences or exhibit other signs of inexcusably sloppy grammar like unneeded superfluous redundancies that almost certainly would have insidious effects on the lifestyle and morals of our impressionable youth, leading them to commit incest or even murder and maybe that's why Billy is strangling his mother, because of sentences just like this one, which have no discernible goals or perspicuous purpose and just end up anywhere, even in mid

Bizarre. A sentence fragment. Another fragment. Twelve years old. This is a sentence that. Fragmented. And strangling his mother. Sorry, sorry. Bizarre. This. More fragments. This is it. Fragments. The title of this story, which. Blond. Sorry, sorry. Fragment after fragment. Harder. This is a sentence that. Fragments. Damn good device.

The purpose of this sentence is threefold: (1) to apologize for the unfortunate and inexplicable lapse exhibited by the preceding paragraph; (2) to assure you, the reader, that it will not happen again; and (3) to reiterate the point that these are uncertain and difficult times and that aspects of language, even seemingly stable and deeply rooted ones such as syntax and meaning, do break down. This sentence adds nothing substantial to the sentiments of the preceding sentence but merely provides a concluding sentence to this paragraph, which otherwise might not have one.

This sentence, in a sudden and courageous burst of altruism, tries to abandon the self-referential mode but fails. This sentence tries again, but the attempt is doomed from the start.

This sentence, in a last ditch attempt to infuse some iota of story line into this paralyzed prose piece, quickly alludes to Billy's frantic cover-up attempts, followed by a lyrical, touching, and beautifully written passage, wherein Billy is reconciled with his father (thus resolving the subliminal Freudian conflicts obvious to any astute reader) and a final exciting police chase scene during which Billy is accidentally shot and killed by a panicky rookie policeman who is coincidentally named Billy. This sentence, although basically in complete sympathy with the laudable efforts of the preceding action-packed sentence, reminds the reader that such allusions to a story that doesn't, in fact, yet exist are no substitute for the real thing and therefore will not get the author (indolent goof-off that he is) off the proverbial hook.

Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph.

The purpose. Of this paragraph. Is to apologize. For its gratuitous use. Of. Sentence fragments. Sorry.

The purpose of this sentence is to apologize for the pointless and silly adolescent games indulged in by the preceding two paragraphs, and to express regret on the part of us, the more mature sentences, that the entire tone of this story is such that it can't seem to communicate a simple, albeit sordid, scenario.

This sentence wishes to apologize for all the needless apologies found in this story (this one included), which, although placed here ostensibly for the benefit of the more vexed readers, merely delay in a maddeningly recursive way the continuation of the by-now nearly forgotten story line.

This sentence is bursting at the punctuation marks with news of the dire import of self-reference as applied to sentences, a practice that could prove to be a veritable Pandora's box of potential havoc, for if a sentence can refer or allude to itself, why not a lowly subordinate clause, perhaps this very clause? Or this sentence fragment? Or three words? Two words? One?

Perhaps it is appropriate that this sentence gently and with no trace of condescension remind us that these are indeed difficult and uncertain times and that in general people just aren't nice enough to each other, and perhaps we, whether sentient human beings or sentient sentences, should just try harder. I mean, there is such a thing as free will, there has to be, and this sentence is proof of it! Neither this sentence nor you, the reader, is completely helpless in the face of all the pitiless forces at work in the universe. We should stand our ground, face facts, take Mother Nature by the throat and just try harder. By the throat. Harder. Harder, harder.

Sorry.

This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself.

This is the last sentence of the story. This is the last sentence of the story. This is the last sentence of the story. This is.

Sorry.

Originally published in Metamagical Themas by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Basic Books, 1985.