[29] in Dilbert Redistribution
Dilbert Newsletter #21 correction
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (System Administrator)
Fri Sep 25 21:21:26 1998
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:07:13 -0400
Reply-To: "Dogbert's New Ruling Class" <DILBERT_NEWS@LISTSERV.UNITEDMEDIA.COM>
From: System Administrator <admin@UNITEDMEDIA.COM>
To: DILBERT_NEWS@LISTSERV.UNITEDMEDIA.COM
Dilbert Newsletter 21.0 Errata
------------------------------------
To: Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC)
From: Scott Adams
Date: September 1998
Emergency Induhvidual Alert
-----------------------------------
It is my sad duty to report that an Induhvidual has infiltrated the DNRC
ranks and apparently it's me.
I'm getting flamed to a crisp over two items of the most recent
newsletter. Some clarification is needed.
24 Time Zones
------------------
As ten thousand people have pointed out to me, there are indeed far more
than 24 time zones in the world. The True Tale of an Induhvidual in the
last newsletter was therefore a false alarm.
That erroneous tale was actually caught and deleted by my editor, but
reappeared after a file got trashed and I reverted to an older edition
before publishing.
I succeeded in being an Induhvidual twice on the same topic -- first for
not knowing how many time zones there are, and second for publishing it
after I found out. I plan to enroll in a twelve-step program to keep me
from doing this sort of thing again.
My Political Opinions?
---------------------------
Many people have mistaken my jokes about Zippergate for actual opinions.
As I have said many times, I would never express my complete and
unvarnished opinions about anything important. I would surely be killed
if anyone knew what was really happening inside my head.
According to my flaming e-mail, the Zippergate jokes seemed like
opinions because of the things I did NOT address, such as the legal and
moral implications of adultery and lying under oath. That made it seem
like I was presenting an unbalanced political opinion.
For the record, I ignored the legal and moral issues because they are
matters of fact, on which virtually all citizens agree. (He lied under
oath. He was immoral. The evidence for other crimes is ambiguous.)
People have legitimate differences in opinion on how important the facts
are, and what to do next. But that's not funny. It's hard to make
jokes on topics where everyone has the correct information and has
formed a rational opinion.
Instead, I chose to mock the opinions I've heard that are based on wrong
assumptions, or are simply not relevant to the main issues. As citizens
we are, in effect, managing the government by our collective opinions.
And bad management deserves mocking in any context. I think it's fair
to weed out the silly arguments about Zippergate. What you do with the
remainder is up to you. Don't think you have my advice on the subject.
Scott Adams
