Writer Wrongs

As I Understand It™, on this day in history — July 31, 1703 — English ink-spiller Daniel Defoe was sentenced for the crime of "seditious libel" and carted off to the town square pillory for a dose of public humiliation — which is to say, a pelting about the face and hands with rotting vegetables, rice balls and rubber bands. This was years before Defoe established himself as one of the world's first “novel” writers — responsible for the likes of "The Swiss Family Robinson Crusoe," if memory swerves — back when he was a scribbler of “pamphlets” on topics ranging from economics to the "Kama Sutra," for all I bloody know. Pamphleteers, 'twould seem, were the bloggers of the day, the bloviating insufferables who got their material in front of the public without so much as a strike of an editor’s Flair® pen. 'Twas all bloody bollocks, then and now, and if the seditiously satirizing Defoe smart-mouthed the wrong state official, he got what was coming to him, which, as it turned out, 'twas a mere pelting of flower petals, as the public was sympathetic of the word-churning everyman, who even gained a fan in one Earl of Oxford, who would take Defoe under his employ. In any event, methinks that today’s tidal wave of WordPress® wankers — with their self-published wretchedness — deserve a taste of the pillory and not just for show-and-tell in a costumed photo opportunity. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but a properly pitched projectile at a tiresome, undeserving writer target is satisfying, indeed. Take aim, citizens! Commence to humiliate!!