Friday, 21 February 2003

Belittling READY.GOV

The latest craze in the blogosphere is apparently to make fun of READY.GOV, the Department of Homeland Security's website where you too can learn how to save your ass in the event of a WMD attack.

While I agree at some level with The Fat Guy's critique of the craze (the site does seem to have some moderately useful information, in contrast with the downright creepy main DHS site), you've got to admit that the free graphics are providing a field day for the artistically-impaired; take, for example Kieran Healy's storyboard of the Iraq crisis, Amish Tech Support's “The Adventures of... THE FLAMING FART!”, Michele's captioning series, a two-parter at The Short Strange Trip, and general humor from Davezilla, among others. And, since I'm nothing if not artistically-impaired, here's my contribution to the genre:

Image of a man next to a filing cabinet and a bookshelf, with a NO sign.

Bob resolved then and there to quit his paper-pushing job and to return to school so he could hone his true passion, interpretive dance.

Image of a radio with a man deciding whether to duck and cover or run away.

When Christina Aguilera's “Dirrty” came on the radio, Steve was again faced with his classic dilemma: should he cower in fear and hope the song would end soon, or should he flee the building entirely on the premise that it's just the start of a “Former Mouseketeers” block?

Thanks to Jeff Jarvis and the others who have linked (some of whom are listed in the TrackBack link below). If it's your first visit, feel free to look around. And don't miss the continuation of the series