Anybody know what a SNARK is? If I remember correctly, from the book "The Illuminatis Trilogy" by Robert Anton Wilson and that other guy, a SNARK is a glaringly obvious contradiction or purposeful bit of bullshit in a media report that jumps out at you and makes you see what the true intentions of the publisher are. In the book, they decribe it in a more humourous way. I don't have a copy of that book, right now, but I think that's basically it.

THE POINT IS, today's sunday New York Times Magazine is riddled with Y2K SNARKS. They don't publish it on-line (or at least I've never been able to find it) so in this particular post I won't give quotes.

But, the first piece is called "Doomsaday Machines: Our computers will be just fine - millennial angst is the real year 2000 problem."

On the next page is piece called "A More Perfect Future: the big news of the millennium ahead will build on the main events of the millennium now ending."

THEN, there is a feature titled: "How The Eggheads Cracked: John Meriwether and his band of doctorate-toting, computer-crazy strategists had the world of 90's global finance all figured out. Then, last August, it got bad, fast. Non of the young professors at Long-Term Capitol, it turns out, had ever considered how weird, how irrational - how human!- even their elegant, highly esoteric financial markets can be."

Then another feature called: "Spies Wanted" which seems to describe the hows and whys of CIA recruitment.

The SNARK here is that the New York Times is the "newspaper of record" for the Global Financial Elite. Many upscale and influential New Yorkers are going to spend a lazy, rainy sunday afternoon reading these seemingly unconnected articles, and come away with no relevant conclusions whatsoever. Most readers are going to see each of these pieces WHICH ARE ALL RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER as having nothing to do with one another, while if taken as a whole, together they present a very obvious view of the NYT's role in promoting the One World Government. I mean it, it's GLARINGLY OBVIOUS!

---SNARK!---

(Can anybody out there post the definition of SNARK from Illuminatis?)

Give me an hour or two and I'll post some choice quotes...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 24, 1999

Answers

pshannon, in accepting your great definition ...

From the California, West Coast, San Francisco Y2K perspective -- home of the December S.F. Blackout courtesy of our local power utility, PG& E -- they are preparing, with few snarks in sight. (Its been so long ago that New York had a blackout, that complacency has set in, IMHO).

Check out S.F. Gate which combines the local big three media San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle newspapers and the Channel 4 KRON TV web-sites:

http://www.sfgate.com/

Search on Y2K and enjoy reading:

http://www.sfgate.com/search/< /a>

The local cognitive dissonance, with snark tendencies, is contrasting that S.F. group with the main Silicon Valley news, the San Jose Mercury News, just 60 miles away in the South Bay Area, which is all too often Y2K lite or even overly happy face.

http://www.sjmercury.com/

Search the Merc for Y2K by comparison:

http:// www.mercurycenter.com/resources/search/

I do however, find the Mercs Breaking AP News area helpful, though it often never hits the print version:

http://www.sjmercury.com/ breaking/

Does this mean were going Y2K snark shooting now?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 24, 1999.

pshannon: I thought RAW called those "fnords"?

-- a (a@a.a), January 24, 1999.

"FNORDS"

a, you might be right about that. I don't remember now, as I don't have a copy of the book. What's a SNARK, then?

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 24, 1999.

Doing a VERY quick and cursory websearch: a SNARK seems to be something from Lewis Carroll, as in "The Hunting of the Snark." A FNORD seems to be what I was describing. Sorry for the mix-up.

The title of this thread should be:

---FNORD!---

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 24, 1999.

The Snark is well described in Lewis Carroll's definitive treatise, The Hunting of the Snark, now available on the Internet: click here.

The Snark itself is a mild creature, but its deceptively similar cousin, the Boojum, is quite vicious. Hence Carroll's public-spirited effort to present the distinguishing characteristics of each.

See below typical references from his work, contrasting the two:

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm, Yet, I feel it my duty to say, Some are Boojums--" The Bellman broke off in alarm, For the Baker had fainted away.

[...]

" 'You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care; You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its life with a railway-share; You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold In a hasty parenthesis cried, "That's exactly the way I have always been told That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")

" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, If your Snark be a Boojum! For then You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!'

[...]

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found Not a button, or feather, or mark, By which they could tell that they stood on the ground Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away--- For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 24, 1999.

See this thread:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000QFs

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 24, 1999.

O.K. If we are going to FNORD, then I submit we quit using GI and switch to Grok. Remember "Stranger in a Strange Land?" Grokking is a lot more intrinsic than Getting It.

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), January 24, 1999.