From: gbrown@Elroy.UH.EDU (G. Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: enough is enough
Date: 18 Dec 1992 04:58:23 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
Reply-To: gbrown@Elroy.UH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: elroy.uh.edu

In article <1992Dec17.2156}(mL45.18284@pony.Ingres.COM>, garrett@Ingres.COM (REACH OUT AND GREP SOMEONE) writes:
>In article <1992Dec17.042444.9600@pellns.alleg.edu>, petrosb@coch2.alleg.edu (Brian Petroski)    writes...


>At one time this was funny, but now it's just tiring. Can someone at 
>alligator.u please stop this nonsense coming from your school?
>	Come on folks. Let's just ignore this steady stream of 
>>Garrett
If Dan and Marilyn hadn't done the disappearing act, the boys and girls

If Danbo and Marilyn weren't doing the disappearing act, the boys and girls
from Alleged U. wouldn't have made a ripple here.  The attention paid to them
has been in inverse proportion to the amount of news about our favorite couple.
All of which leads me to think that our group's days are numbered.  All good
things must end, I suppose, but this is sad.  I keep hanging on here, waiting
for Dan to find himself, and a place in the comedy spotlight once again.  In a
way, I think I now know how the conservative Repubs felt when the communist
empire started to unravel.  It has been twelve long years that we have been
forced to endure really lunatic politics from the ultra-conservative right, and 
now that they he ended--not with a bang, but a whimper--we have both an ennemmy
and a comedy vacuum.  I know this won't last, of course, since this is only a
lull in the action prior to the inauguration.  But will Danbo ever really make
it back as fixture in American popular culture?  Even if he runs in '96 (I'm
still hoping he will make good on his threat to run in '94), we are in for a
very long period in which Danbo will probably be out of the media picture. 
Unless something turns up soon, that means that this newsgroup will cease to
have raison d'etre.

So, my suggestion is this.  This newsgroup should continue under its present
name, but its charter, to be spelled out in a revised FAQ file, should be
amended.  The name "Dan Quayle" in the newsgroup title should be given both 
a symbolic and a literal signifance.  Symbolically, it should be understood as
standing for any political figure (broadly construed) who is caught saying or
doing particularly goofy things in the manner of our hero.  In this sense, I
think our boy's name is destined to become dictionary entry:  "Dan Quayle,
noun.  Public buffoon, said especially of political figures, as in 'Senator X
sure made a Dan Quayle of himself today on This Week with David Brinkley.'" 
(There will, of course, be corresponding verbs and adjectives.  To wit:  "He
did nothing but quayle on This Week with David Brinkley; his eyes even had that
glazed, quaylic quality; he made a complete fucking Quayle of himself."  And
gerunds:  "His quayleing kept us in stitches for hours.")  We could thus keep
this newsgroup alive under its present name by reporting quaylic behavior
wherever it is found, but never forgetting that Our Boy is the one true
yardstick by which to measure any purported "quayle" (definition:  an act of
quayleing). The name should also continue to be used in its literal sense when,
on those most happy and glorious of days, we are able to relate a news item 
about our hero his own self.  In this way, our beloved newsgroup can continue
to survive even in the face of a dearth of actual Quayle sightings--and stand
ever at the ready to report any such sigtings promptly, to preserve them for 
posterity.  Otherwise, I think we are going to continue to have this group
loaded up with drivel of the sort draining out of Alleged U., followed by posts
begging us to get back to the real subject, Danbo, even when there is no Danbo,
at the moment, to get back to.

So, uh, what do you all think?
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| Gregory Brown          |   "God is, as it were, the sewer into which       |
| Dept. of Philosophy    |           all contradictions flow"                |
| University of Houston  |                                                   |
| Houston, TX 77204-3785 |               --G. W. F. Hegel                    |
| GBROWN@JETSON.UH.EDU   |        Lectures on the History of Philosophy      |
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Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle