From today’s Annie’s Mailbox, a daily advice column written by Kathy Mitchell & Marcy Sugar:
See the original, if you like.
The letter by “Ben Senior” is obviously metaphorical. My question for y’all is, is “Annie” intentionally trying to pull a fast one on her readers, or is she merely “Ben Senior’s” pawn in a clever little prank? I’ve posed this question to some folks I work with and the response is divided. What say you?
Why yes, I do think it’s a metaphor for homosexuality. I don’t see how the opinion can be divided. It’s plain as day. It couldn’t have been more obvious if “Ben Senior” used the surname “Dover.” She was duped.
Clearly, the knife, being a phallic symbol, is a metaphor for the other boy’s sexual attraction to little Ben, and the uncertainty about the existance of the knife is the uncertainty of the other boy’s homoerotic curiosity.
So Ben, clearly a homosexual himself, decided to show the other boy the “benefits” of gay love by arranging to meet him after school and “beat” him. The characterization of the other boy as “not nice” obviously means that the other boy is not a virgin, and is therefore no stranger to sexual pleasure. And the ambiguosity of the peers’ reponse shows—
—stage hand whispers to bughunter
What? Huh… Oh!
Oh! :eek:
Never mind. :smack:
Nah, I’m pretty sure it (like so much other crap) is about the war in Iraq. Though I sure we could somehow work in UN homosexuals for bughunter if we want to.
Hah! I’m on to you, Fox Paws! Your clever invitation to the meta-debate is just a plot to suck us in to a brawl over the metaphorical implications of the column!
Except, by pointing this out, I’ve made myself into a paranoia-driven leftist zealot. One moment please…
ahem
Sorry about that.
I think the column writer is certainly aware of the symbolism in the purported letter from “Ben Senior”, and is using this opportunity to present a well-reasoned and moderate response to it, in the form of a well-reasoned and moderate response to the supposed incident. Good writers usually learn all about this kind of thing, either in college or in the conduct of their profession.
Heh. “Ben” is hebrew for “son,” which is kind of clever, if intentional.
A well written, metaphorical letter, but the question I want answered is…
Ben has reported this to school authoritites many times. In the past the school authorities have spoken to the child who is accused of having the knife. The child insists he never has brought a knife into school and authorities have not found anything on the student’s person. Also, requests to have the student’s bag checked for knives have been refused by the student, stating that the bag is his personal property. School authorities refuse to take up the matter any further. They say that reprimanding and counseling the kid is working, yet this kid still causes problems with Ben and other children at school. If Ben was not correct in taking preemptive action against this kid, what should he have done?
I admit the metaphor stumped me for a bit. I was a big sack o’ huh?? I blame it on the fact that I’m just now eating lunch. Low blood sugar in the noggin’, ya know. But I got it now. I think. For anyone else still stumped:
“Ben” is George W. Bush, the never-found “knife” is weapons of mass destruction, the ineffectual “school authorities” Dragwyr speaks of are the UN, etc. etc.
Per the OP, I think Annie was wooshed, as her advice doesn’t mesh with the metaphor. “Ben” did go to the authorities, but ignored their judgement of the situation.
Given she’s using the words “preemptive strike”, I would assume she clearly understood the real meaning of the question.
Couldn’t it be that actually both the question and the answer were penned by “Annie”?
I read this letter in our local newspaper this week. I did not get the metaphor until I read Annie’s response and their use of the word pre-emptive was actually what got me to thinking about the real meaning. Also the tone of the letter seemed a little off in a technical way. So, I definitely think that Annie was aware of the real meaning of the letter.
As for Annie writing both the response and the original letter, that could be possible. Maybe they were trying to get a message across to their readers about how they (Annie) felt about the election and the war in Iraq.
Which brings me to another question: Would the average reader of the Annie column recognize this hidden meaning? Not that you have to be a genus or anything to get it because I am certainly not and I got clued into it.
I didn’t even know that was a metaphor…great now every time I read Dear Abby I will be filled with doubt about the true nature of all these questions "Is this person really having a Wedding Shower, or is she just cleverly asking if it is okay to murder her cheating husband and bury him under the overpass? 
"
Sheesh, and I thought people wrote asking real questions :rolleyes:
Count me in as one of the unintelligencia, Incubus. I didn’t get it either.
Somebody around here once wrote to Dear Abby about the fight that the Doper and her sister had years before. They hadn’t spoken to each other since then, and she was wondering if it was time to bury the hatchet and, if so, how she should go about doing it.
Isn’t this the title of Madonna’s latest children’s book?
Interesting. Same thing happend to me when I was a kid except my friends stood by me and convinced the bully I was going to beat the living tar out of him. Didn’t realize I was living a metaphor but I guess “tar” could be mistaken for oil and “friends” could be interpreted as allies. The beating I would have given him could be interpreted as… a beating.
Other bullies weren’t so easily persuaded and I had to scrap it up more than once to protect other kids. If you want, you can interpret “other kids” to be Europe, but they were really just kids.
Just because we haven’t found a knife yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We have credible evidence from a number of sources that the knife existed, and that the bully, who had clear links to other known bullies, was capable of deploying it, and was also planning to develop his knife program. The schoolyard is a large place to search, and we remain confident that inspection teams will recover the knife, along with irrefutable evidence linking the bully in question to the other known bully factions. Meanwhile, we have clearly established that the bully was a threat to the entire playground, and with his well-deserved beating we look forward to a new era of peace and prosperity.
Still no knife, but I heard they may have found a spork.
I believe this is also true…
The child in question, as he had been previously punished for attacking another child with a knife, had been kept at home in detention for the last ten years. Every so often someone would check his rooms for a knife, but that lying little brat wouldn’t tell anyone where it was. Reports are that he was having a good time in his locked room. But Ben’s friends whipsers got the best of him so he went inside the locked room and beat the shit out of him. They still haven’t found the current knife. Every now and then one of the people in his neighborhood is beaten or killed by the authorities, and others from his neighborhood have begun attacking the people patrolling his neigborhood in a spiraling circle of violence.
Lets not forget the French kid was being paid off by ‘the boy’, and the very system who Little Ben was suppose to go to for help was also being paid off by the ‘the boy’. Also lets not forget, the entire school system, and for that matter the entire world, including B. Clinton, and J Kerry knew and spoke out that ‘the boy’ did have a knife w/ Ben’s name on it (or one of Ben’s greatest friend the little Isreali kid). Also let us not forget, nor forgive that ‘the boy’ has raped many girls in that school.
I’d say Ben did the right thing even though is was not the popular thing to do. I also say that if his parents punish him, his parents should be brought up on child abuse charges, and they should lose custody of Ben.
I also thing Annie should find a new line of work.
A gun would make a better analogy. Like a WMD, it can be used only a limited number of times, but to great effect. There are certain things one requires to own and operate a gun, and the evidence for these things can be detected. A K-9 would be able to find an unused gun, because of the gunpowder. (Like a nuke requires refining facilities, detonators and would produce radioactive waste.) Not an unused knife though. A knife is a piss-poor analogy.
