🚀 go-pugleaf

 One week ago yesterday, the Vancouver Province carried the  following
 on page 3:
 
            NDP BILL PROPOSES CULTURAL CONTROL
   Big Brother will soon be watching over culture in B.C.
   The New Democrat government plans to establish a Provincial Cultural
 Advisory Panel with sweeping powers to ensure that B.C. is depicted
 in the media as "a society that embraces women and racial, ethnic and
 sexual minorities."
   Working through a bill introduced by Culture Minister Darlene
 Marzari, the panel will root out "sexism, heterosexism, lookism,
 ageism, homophobia, misogyny, imperialism, capitalism, industrialism
 and velocitism."
   Among other things, according to sources, the panel has a five-year
 mandate to ensure the presence of women and minorities in media
 "corresponds to or exceeds" their presence in B.C. society.  At least
 half of all "heroes" in novels, plays and movies available in B.C.
 must be women.
   Five to 10 per cent of all actors in TV commercials must be gay.
 
  [quoted in full, without permission, because of its brevity.
   details were supplied in a signed column later in the paper.]
 
 Two days later, the same columnist, Shane McCune, was able to report
 that Marzari's office had been swamped with calls, and that two
 Province editors had asked why the story hadn't been carried on the
 front page.  Thus he had considerable justification for beginning
 his column with "Tee-hee-hee...gotcha!"  Marzari, evidently
 possessed of considerably more of a sense of humor than the
 politically correct folks McCune had so neatly shafted, called to
 point out that he had missed the last page of her "bill", which
 outlawed "heightism, baldism and April Foolism."
 
 -------------------------
 
 End of a classic hoax, right?  Wrong.
 
 -------------------------
 
 Last Friday, the North Shore News, which serves several communities
 including North Vancouver, where I live, carried a perfectly
 serious feature editorial headed "Pleasantness please", which began
 
   The NDP's social philosophy is fast becoming law in B.C.
   First we had the provincial government ordering hospitals around
 the province to provide abortion services.
   Then it was the so-called fair wage policy ... [fulminations
 omitted].
   And now comes a bureaucratic absurdity called the Provincial
 Cultural Advisory Panel, through which the provincial government
 hopes to make this a land of pleasantness and uniformity. ...
 [and so one, and on, quoting the original story in detail and
 swallowing it hook, line and sinker].