Satirium was founded in October, 2003 by Bill Stockton, who after a careful analysis of humor, satire and parody available on the Internet, decided there weren’t enough faux news Web sites. Stockton writes three times a week, usually on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and sometimes once more over the weekend.
Bill Stockton is a journalist and writer who was a correspondent for many years at The Associated Press, the executive editor of Physician’s Radio Network and an editor at The New York Times, including Editor of Science Times and the Business and Financial Editor. He was also a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University. He has written several books and enough magazine and newspaper articles to line the bottoms of the world’s bird cages for years to come — unless they’re already engaged clogging up landfills. He lives in a rural setting.
Contact Us
We would like to just publish our e-mail address in the customary manner. But if we did, the spam bots would be all over us like flies on cow dung. So think of Satirium’s e-mail address as a four act play. Act One is entitled contact. Act two is the pronoun us. Act Three is the familiar “at” sign, that is, shift-numeral 2 on the keyboard, @. Act Four is satirum, followed by the very familiar “dot com.” In other words, contact us at satirium dot com, no quote marks, no boldface, but make contact and us a single word.
Satire Warning
Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, published in 1965 (hmmm, perhaps we should buy a new dictionary?), defines the word “satire” like this:
sat-ire 1: a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn 2: trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice and folly
syn see wit
sa-tir-ic
sa-tir-i-cal-ly
sat-i-rist
sat-i-rize
Everything published at Satirium.com is satire or parody and is completely the product of the writer’s imagination and view of the world. Imaginary characters are just that, imaginary. So are the imaginary situations in which the author places them. Public figures who appear are just that, public figures.
We Americans are blessed to live in a place and a time in which one is free to mirror society through satirical writing. Generally, libel law in the United States protects the satirist, since his or her writings are so obviously parody, since it’s so clear that the subject being written about would never actually say or do such a thing. Or that such a situation or event would ever arise.
Note: Under the provisions of the Patriot Act, the contents of Satirium have been approved by the Attorney General as acceptable.
According to J.W. Hunnicutt of Tampa, Florida, a scholar of Caesarian Rome of no little repute, Satirium is derived from an obscure Roman Latin-based dialect used only at the foot of the Third Hill of Rome approximately 2,312 years ago. As a young man, Satirius was a big hit at an early improv club there and his fans called his monologs satirium. Satire wasn’t particularly appreciated in certain quarters of Caesarian Rome and Satirius constantly looked over his shoulder for the modern day equivalent of the FBI, the Attorney General, and the Director of the National Zoo.
Honeycutt is believed to be the only person to ever fully conjugate the Latin verb satirio.