Reincarnation of Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift, born November 30^th, 1667 and died October 19^th, 1745, was an Anglo-Irish priest, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, and poet, famous for works like Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, The Drapier’s Letters, The Battle of the Books, and a A Tale of a Tub. Swift was, according to Wikipedia, “the foremost prose satirist in the English language, although he is less well known for his poetry. Swift published all of his works under pseudonyms – such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier – or anonymously.”

Jonathan Swift has been reincarnated and now appears in a blog simply named Jon Swift; and knowing the satirical individual that publishes it, that isn’t his real name. I learned, although I had heard through the “blog circuit” of Jon Swift, from Gordo’s Appletree blog.

When you first read his writings, which include book reviews at Amazon.com, you are amazed at drivel you are reading – but then realize that it is all satire and against things like political correctness and other liberal-progressive diatribe. Or is it? One never knows, and if you are interested in fun mind games, check this site out. The site is listed at LPJ under “Humor/Satire” bookmarks. At the heading of his blog, he writes:

“I am a reasonable conservative who likes to write about politics and culture. Since the media is biased I get all my news from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Jay Leno monologues.” And one wonders if this is truly accurate or revealing of this mysterious tongue-in-cheek author – and is his name truly “Jon Swift”?

Random Thoughts on the Political Scene

A recent series of Democrat Party ads here in Wisconsin has brought some thoughts together. The most outrageous is blaming high cost of fuel on Bush and the oil corporations, despite the fact that the average profit of oil companies is around 9.5%, whereas the government takes 40 cents of every dollar. The real reason is complex, but the major reason simple – government intrusion. The same finger pointers in political ads concerning the high cost of fuel at the pump are the culprits who voted against oil exploration in Alaska, reduced oil pumping off our nation’s coast, disallowed another refinery to be built which has been needed because of demand for thirty years and not allowing refineries to rebuild in order to meet those demands. With that aside, let’s get to the political meat of the subject …