POWER PLAY: I PREFER RANDOM ACTS OF SARCASM

I'm hip to the whole love-thy-neighbor scene, but this Random Acts of Kindness thing is getting annoying.

All week the entire community has run around inflicting niceties on each other. In 1996 America, this sort of thing is an aberration.

Kindness oozes all over the place, enveloping people like seagulls following an oil tanker disaster.

Kindness week's effect on this newsroom is especially horrific.

Newsrooms are supposed to be dreary, unhappy places populated by bitter, cantankerous and cynical people. It's a time-honored tradition of journalism.

But all week not a single coworker has gone postal. When this much time passes without a shot fired in anger in the newsroom, something is clearly amiss.

I have been one of the few holdouts from the kindness revolution, wearing my best dour expressions in an attempt to keep everything in proper journalistic perspective.

Even Speak Out, which can usually be counted on for endless inane rantings, is filled with positive remarks.

Since it was announced that only such comments would be published, however, daily calls plummeted from the normal average of 40 or so to about a half-dozen.

By cutting off their primary source of expression, it is hoped the Speak Out people will learn life is more than just chronic complaining and become productive members of society.

With all this kindness about, however, the lovely sound of sarcasm is in short supply around town of late.

For those of you also missing the snide ring of a good cutting remark, I offer some Random Acts of Sarcasm:

-- "Random" means having no specific pattern or objective. If something is random, it is haphazard.

During Random Acts of Kindness Week, however, many diverse groups and individuals have implemented well-planned strategies for being nice.

Therefore Random Acts of Kindness Week is not actually random. These acts are premeditated and, in legal parlance, definitely acts of kindness in the first degree.

-- Random Acts of Kindness Week actually lasts eight days, running from last Sunday until tomorrow. Eight days doth not a week make, though "Eight Days a Week" doth a snappy Beatles tune make.

Considering the previous point as well as truth in advertising laws, a more accurate name should be Premeditated Acts of Kindess Eight Days.

-- Phrases continuously popping up this week refer to kindness efforts as "contagious" and as having a "domino effect."

The word "contagious" generally carries a negative connotation and sends people scurrying for penicillin shots.

Fortunately many treatments exist for a kindness infection. Among the more effective are a good, solid stomp on the foot, watching a couple of hours of Pat Buchanan speeches or a visit from a "60 Minutes" film crew.

And, as every student of 1950s and 1960s American foreign policy is aware, the domino effect always draws America into a costly, ineffective land war in Asia. The Red Menace rears its ugly head in Southeast Missouri.

-- A goodly number of the supposedly kind acts involve people stuffing cookies, cakes, candies, burgers and hot dogs down the gullets of others.

Though this may appear kind on the surface, the Food Police diligently warn that consuming anything yummy will cause you to drop dead instantly.

Despite the tone of this column, I would like to end with some comments about the recent trials and tribulations of Earl the Iguana, a story which has touched the hearts of everyone in the community.

Earl, as you recall, wandered away from his Chaffee home May 10 and went missing for several days. Considering the unseasonably cold weather, Earl's family feared the worst.

I, for one, dreaded that Earl's nude, lifeless body might be found in some sleazy motel room in Memphis alongside a bag of cocaine and a videotape of him in a compromising position with a known prostitute. A respected iguana such as Earl has enemies, you know.

Fortunately, Earl, tired but unharmed, turned up Wednesday just a few feet from home after an Odyssey through the mean streets of Chaffee.

One lizard on his own in an uncaring world. Truly a heartwarming tale of courage and perseverance.

Marc Powers is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.