-
- QWERTY (kwûr'tee) adj.
- Of, relating to, or designating the traditional configuration of typewriter or computer keyboard keys. [From the first six letters at the upper left.]
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Q ERTY Series: The Inspiration
- No Joke
-
- Those who trashed the White House were vicious vandals, not merry pranksters.
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- BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
- Monday, January 29, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST
- The Wall Street Journal
-
- What is a "prank"? And when does a prank take on a darker hue and
- merit, instead, a less indulgent label--such as "delinquency," or
- "vandalism"?
-
- These questions, whose answers are rooted in common sense, culture and
- civilization, were raised last week by revelations first detailed on the
- Internet by Matt Drudge, for whose insolent, frontiersman's approach to
- newsgathering we continue to be grateful. He's not always right, and
- he's not always elegant, but he bawls his tales from the rafters when
- others, more timorous and more conventional, would only mince their
- words, or whisper.
-
- Although the mainstream press echoed the story only reluctantly, and
- sought to draw its sting by downgrading it to the status of rumor, the
- contents of the Drudge report seemed to be unquestionably consonant with
- the tone, the oh-so-jarring tone, struck, in their departure from the
- White House, by the Clinton cohorts--from the strutting
- self-congratulation of the ex-president at Andrews Air Force Base (like
- a weed, he'd taken root, and like a weed he called to be ripped from the
- soil beneath him), to the stripping bare of the former Air Force One by
- the ex-presidential locusts.
-
- According to reports, outgoing Clinton-Gore staffers at the White House
- performed a range of "pranks," including the prizing out from many White
- House computer keyboards of the W (Dubya) key, the gluing shut of
- drawers on office desks, the infecting of computers with viruses, the
- recording of offensive reception messages on the answering machines, the
- slashing (yes, slashing) of telephone lines, the loading of pornographic
- images on printers and computers, offensive graffiti on corridors and
- bathroom walls, the turning upside down of desks, and, as a valedictory
- signature, the leaving of a trail of trash across the West Wing.
-
- Mr. Drudge, the only one to quantify the damage publicly, has put the
- monetary estimate--in terms of its cost to the taxpayer--at $200,000.
- There is some speculation that this is a conservative estimate...
-
- In the context of the White House, any harm or damage must be construed
- to include the infliction of a burden on the taxpayer--not to mention
- the interference, however temporary, with the business of government.
-
...the slashing of phone lines? The gluing shut of desk drawers? The - gouging out from keyboards of the W key? The infection of computers
- with viruses? The redirection of official phone lines, on which the
- public and government rely? These, I fear, violate the prankster's
- rulebook. They caused damage; lines, desks, computers and keyboards
- needed repair and replacement. My money, and yours, was used for this
- repair.
-
- Most shabby of all, however, was the perpetrators' intent. A true
- prank--a prank properly defined--is carried out in a jocular spirit.
- Pranks are escapades, monkeyshines. They're not acts of venom or spite,
- of resentment or ill-will. If the actor is malefic, he is not a
- prankster but a vandal. He is, in truth, a delinquent.
-
- That's what I learned in grade school, and I commend that interpretation
- to you.
-
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays. |
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