As a follow-up to their successful guerrilla journalism attack on George Dubya (see George Dubya Gets an Endorsement, the gang at 22 Minutes, a CBC news/satire show, wandered down to Princeton University recently.
Rick Mercer, one of the regulars on the show, posed as an activist trying to get people to sign a vaguely lefty-environmentalist petition, to Mayor Mel Lastman of Toronto, urging him to prohibit the annual polar bear hunt in the streets of Toronto as cruel and inhumane. He also asked them to sign a similar petition to Canada’s Prime Minister Tim Horton. He mentioned this type of petition was a “double-double” type of petition, common in Canada.
Several students and professors signed both petitions, including some who studied/taught politics.
I hope the Teeming Millions will know that polar bears tend not to frequent T.O. As well, Tim Horton’s is a dougnut chain, with a combination called a double-double.
So, if a brash young guy with a slight Newfie accent and a microphone with a “22” on it approaches you on the streets in the U.S., starts talking about something Canadian, and asks for your opinion on camera, be very afraid. This might be a good time for “No habla englese.”
And let’s not forget the Man Show, where they got hundreds of women to sign a petition to put an end to women’s suffrage. haha
By the way, did you know the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary?
There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all,
but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.
– Demosthenes
I’m sure we could come up with something to fool a lot of guys just as easily. It was a funny sketch. Pretty much any question that required one to have paid attention in high school civics class would get a similar result.
Both gullible and gullable are in my Webster’s new collegiate '81 edition.
