Grant Remmers: Who is Mr. Block?

To the Editor:

If you look hard enough of issues in The High Plains Reader you can find a blog nestled deep in the pages. I am labeling it as a blog on the simple fact that it’s nothing but a savage writer that even goes far to admit that all he does is state the obvious. That writer goes by the name Mr. William Block. And yes Will, I am getting annoyed of it already.

He makes writing seem very easy to do that I am even attempting it. I only read one blog of his and it was enough to get my blood seeping through the pores of my skin. Right off the bat Mr. Block calls everyone that would benefit from reformed health care “poor and lazy,” but later responds at the end he had to pay five thousand dollars over a mishap in the Medicare system of a beloved one. I don’t know Mr. Block as a person but I am sure that he is neither poor nor lazy. I would say though it does explain his writing… and his last name describing the shape of his head.

After claiming all foreigners are terrorists (no lie, see for yourself) and way too many exclamation points that make you hear Rush Limbaugh reading the article to you, he gets onto the issue. Mr. Block goes on to fantasize on how global warming is a conspiracy by scientists practicing “junk science” just to get aid from the federal government. It is supposedly the same plan they used on AIDS in the 80s and 90s to get those funds. Those pesky scientists and their actions to make a world a better place, and they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for Mr. Block. How can someone have these radical ideas with no evidence to support them except his own counterfeit claims? HIV/AIDS is probably the most severe pandemic we have had in the last 40 years if not more. And he expects us not to pay any attention to it. What should we pay attention to Mr. Block?

There are so many factors contributing to global warming that the Exxon Valdez is just a small contributor. Mr. Block is horrible at math, changing from acres to kilometers to miles in just a few words. If it is true that it did cover 11,000,000 square kilometers, which I think he added a few extra zeros on the end, his math is wrong and if he would’ve done the math he obviously would’ve noticed it. Let me break this down for you. It covered 11,000,000 square miles or 28,000,000 square kilometers. According to Mr. Block he states that there is 155,557,000 square kilometers in the Pacific Ocean. Now class, follow along as we do the math together. 28,000,000/155,557,000=.179999 or 18% of the ocean. I guess those animals were “dumb” to not read the memo that there was going to be an oil spill that is going to cover 152 times the size of North Dakota. Those numbers seem quite extreme but Mr. Block seems quite extreme himself.

He failed to mention the burning of the fossil fuels and polluting of the oceans. Mr. Block apparently doesn’t think the many problems in the world affect him. I want Mr. Block to write us an article of something we should care about instead of bashing things that we do really need to be concerned about.

To answer the title of this article I can only go on what I know through his blog. Mr. Block is a man that would’ve laughed at the helpless and oil-saturated birds on the news reports while flicking Spaghetti-O’s at the T.V. screen as the rest of them would run out of his snout as he opened his mouth to oink.

As a side-note to Mr. Block I am here to reiterate two writing rules by two superb writers.

1. “Don’t use exclamation points in your writing, it’s like laughing at your own joke.”

2. “Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

Grant Remmers
Fargo

Editor’s Note: The article being referred to is from HPR’s satire section: “The Rubber Chicken.”