Worst published prose you've ever encountered

[Malthus]

Doesn't seem that odd given that she had quite an unusual upbringing and spent a lot of her time with just her family in isolated locations. At least that's the impression I got from her Desert Island Discs slot.

It's true enough. My grandfather was a forest entomologist and so their kids grew up rather isolated, in the woods. In fact, we still have the cottage they grew up in, in northern Quebec on an isolated lake (Lake Kipawa). Last year some tourists actually showed up there, in the middle of nowhere! 

[Scipio]

Worst published prose I've encountered?

The proposed language of Mississippi's proposition 26:


"Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word 'person' or 'persons', as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."

Hilarious.  I can't wait to start filing 14th Amendment suits against MDOC on behalf of incarcerated pregnant females.  Also, habeas corpus suits against fertility clinics, etc.

[Ideologue]

Heh, my aunt is not in fact my favourite writer - the themes that interest her are not those that interest me, reading her is often uncomfortably like overhearing my parents gossip - but, trolling aside, there is no doubt she's a very good writer indeed.

It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.

I really hope your family history isn't like Handmaid's Tale.

[Ideologue]

"Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word 'person' or 'persons', as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."

In this world, or in space.

[jimmy olsen]

Worst published prose I've encountered?

The proposed language of Mississippi's proposition 26:


"Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word 'person' or 'persons', as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."

Hilarious.  I can't wait to start filing 14th Amendment suits against MDOC on behalf of incarcerated pregnant females.  Also, habeas corpus suits against fertility clinics, etc.

I like #7 the best
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/10/mississippi_s_anti_abortion_amendment_the_very_weird_implication.html

My Slate colleagues and I spent a few minutes imagining some of the possibilities raised by the Mississippi amendment. We came up with some interesting ideas (see below), but we bet you come up with even better ones: Please add them in the comments section at the end of the article, and we'll write a follow-up about some of your best notions.

Here are some of the questions we came up with:

    1. If you are legal person at fertilization, does that mean you could drink at 20 years and three months? Could you drive at 15 and three months? Could you vote at age 17, and collect Social Security at 64?

    2. For legal purposes, would your birthday still be your "birth" day? Or your fertilization day?

    3. Could you get a tax deduction for your dependent embryo?

    4. Could you post ultrasound photos of your fetus (naked) on Facebook? Or would that be child pornography?

    5. Could you arrest women for smoking or drinking while pregnant? Could the state file a child abuse case against a mother who didn't wear a seatbelt or otherwise endangered her fetus?

    6. Would you be an American citizen if you were conceived in Mississippi but born elsewhere? Could there be "anchor babies" whose parents come to the United States, have sex, and then return home to Mexico for their baby's birth?

    7. What about ectopic pregnancies? If the embryo is not removed, it could kill the mother. Should the mother or the doctor be prosecuted for manslaughter if they remove it? Maybe it would be fairer to prosecute the embryo. If the fertilized egg is a person, isn't that person trying to commit murder-suicide?

    8. What about freezing fertilized embryos? Would that be allowed? And why? If you're freezing an embryo indefinitely, isn't that effectively imprisoning it? We don't freeze people.

    9. If a doctor doesn't take all possible steps to stop a miscarriage, would that be manslaughter?

    10. How would you determine the date of conception?

    11. If a woman eats food contaminated by Listeria and miscarries, could the agribusiness be prosecuted for murder?

    12. If you move to Mississippi from another state, would you legally be a year older?

13. How would it affect the census?

14. What would happen to astrological signs? Would I no longer be an Aquarius?

[Ideologue]

8. What about freezing fertilized embryos? Would that be allowed? And why? If you're freezing an embryo indefinitely, isn't that effectively imprisoning it? We don't freeze people.

Maybe you peons.  I'm going to the future.

[jimmy olsen]

    7. What about ectopic pregnancies? If the embryo is not removed, it could kill the mother. Should the mother or the doctor be prosecuted for manslaughter if they remove it? Maybe it would be fairer to prosecute the embryo. If the fertilized egg is a person, isn't that person trying to commit murder-suicide?

Thinking on this one further, wouldn't the removal be allowed under the right of self defense?

[Grey Fox]

You guys haven't read bad prose until you have a read a translation of a book with bad prose in it's original language.

Sometimes, sentences just stop.

[Scipio]

I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant.  Fuck bond- we're freeing the unborn child!

Also, pregnant illegal immigrants can't be deported, or confined, since their unborn child is almost a citizen.

Cavity search of pregnant dope peddler?  Invades unborn child's privacy.

Conjugal visits for prisoners: only barrier methods of birth control permitted.

I'm loving this.

[Lucidor]

Lawtroll?

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant.

Don't think it necessarily follows that jailing the mother acts as deprivation of liberty for the unborn child - its liberty is unaffected.

[Scipio]

I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant.

Don't think it necessarily follows that jailing the mother acts as deprivation of liberty for the unborn child - its liberty is unaffected.

Are you familiar with the level of maternity care in jail? nightmarish doesn't fully reflect how bad it is.

[Capetan Mihali]

Why would I read garbage?  Though I do have a few favorite authors that write "badly" but oh so well, e.g. David Goodis and assorted pulp B-listers...

You can end up reading garbage when you didn't intend to.

You're absolutely right.  I nominate John Rawls, "A Theory of Justice."   

[Razgovory]

8. What about freezing fertilized embryos? Would that be allowed? And why? If you're freezing an embryo indefinitely, isn't that effectively imprisoning it? We don't freeze people.

Maybe you peons.  I'm going to the future.

So am I.  I'm traveling into the future as I post this.  In fact, I haven't found a way to stop going to the future.

[Caliga]

So am I.  I'm traveling into the future as I post this.  In fact, I haven't found a way to stop going to the future.

You could try joining a Southern Baptist congregation.