zw2: reign czech

Intrepid journalist Hank Talbot continues his exposé of the disturbing political agenda behind the zoo world facebook propaganda blitz.

I will be the first to recognise the irony (nay! the naïveté) in the title of my first zoo world post, “good riddance.” It would be good, indeed, to bid this brightly-coloured propaganda mill “adieu” and return to commentary on the latest pulchritudinous pics targeting me, a 27 year old male, on facebook. Alas, the buxom beauties must wait for another day, for I would be remiss to ignore my journalistic duty. As they teach us in J-school: duty before booty.

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zw2.03: reign czech

Intrepid journalist Hank Talbot continues his exposé of the disturbing political agenda behind the zoo world facebook propaganda blitz.

It is time to begin connecting the dots. I will begin with the humble piece of playground equipment colloquially known as the “merry-go-round,” which belongs properly to the class of apparati known as “carousels.” Although the earliest known depiction of a carousel, a Byzantine bas-relief (relieved some 1500 years ago), features guys hanging out in baskets, the carousel is historically equine in composition. According to legend, European crusaders brought the idea back home in the twelfth-century after witnessing the cavalry training and combat exercises of Turkish and Arabian horsemen. By the 1600s the French had refined the crude battle game into an opulent “horse ballet,” something like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade travelling in a big circle. Except without the Macy’s part. Or the Thanksgiving part.

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zw2.04: reign czech

Intrepid journalist Hank Talbot continues his exposé of the disturbing political agenda behind the zoo world facebook propaganda blitz.

The ambiguity of the term “merry-go-round” makes it difficult to pin down an exact symbolism intended by the propagandist—which is, without a doubt, exactly what he (or she) intended! Recall the discussion from reign czech, pt. 2, where we examined the brilliant use of the rhetorical question in this zoo world ad. If we are unable to determine exactly what type of device is meant by “merry-go-round,” a degree of uncertainty attaches itself to the term in our subconscious. We are uncertain, meaning we do not fully understand what is intended by the ad’s author. Recall the great axiom of tolerance: “we fear what we do not understand.” If we do not understand the exact meaning of the term, we therefore fear the term. And fear, my friend, is the most powerful weapon in the propagandist’s arsenal.

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zw2.05: reign czech

Intrepid journalist Hank Talbot continues his exposé of the disturbing political agenda behind the zoo world facebook propaganda blitz.

A simpleton might jump to the conclusion that the ferris wheel represents American democracy or some such nonsense. This notion, perhaps fueled by the presence of “George Washington” in the name of the wheel’s inventor (George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.), is lacking a larger historical perspective. Identifying the wheel with capitalism is similarly small-minded. The fact that Ferris’s Chicago Wheel made a good deal of money only serves to underscore the magnitude of the thievery of the Columbian Exposition’s planners, who absconded with the profits and left poor Ferris . . . well, poor.

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