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languishing typo-ridden encyclopedia
Tuesday, March 6 2007
Though it's already been in existence for several months, I only just learned today of an entertaining website called Conservapedia.com. You might think with a name like that it would be focused on cataloging and describing things in the world in need of conservation, but that's not what it's about. Running on the same open source software as Wikipedia.org, Conservapedia.com has been designed to serve the "facts" of an alternative conservative universe, a universe where Revolutionary general George Washington and Warren G. Harding are two of only five authentically-conservative American presidents worthy of note and one where kangaroos originated in the Middle East because, well, that's where Noah's Ark landed. Andy Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia (and son of 80s cultural warrior Phyllis), claims Conservapedia is a necessary alternative to Wikipedia, which he claims is godless, America-hating, and "long winded." Andy Schlafly is a lawyer who specializes in lawsuits based on the dubious theory that abortion causes breast cancer, a theory that Conservapedia presents as a well-established fact (though the Bible, the most useful scientific reference available, had nothing to contribute on the matter). Interestingly, though, the abortion statistics in the Conservapedia abortion entry making the case for an abortion-breast cancer relationship seem to be exactly opposite those appearing on the far more reputable NationMaster.com statistics site.
The writing in Conservapedia presents a comic-book reality built of "science" from thousand year old books, medical "facts" shouted into existence, and familiar heroes from history claimed as both deeply religious and unflinchingly reactionary. In the past I've delighted in writing prose of this sort myself, but with ironic intent. When I see paragraphs that I myself might have included in a letter to a Shenandoah Valley editor, I realize that my ironic writing could easily become gospel if it were to find its way into Conservapedia. Unfortunately, and unlike Wikipedia, Conservapedia can only be edited by known members of the Conservapedia community. This is why their typo-ridden encyclopedia languishes while large parts of Wikipedia asymptotically approach perfection. Perhaps mocking right wing nutjobs is impossible - the closer one gets to really insightful irony, the more one sounds like an authentic right wing radio talkshow host. How else to explain the following graphic, which purportedly was created without ironic intent?
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