Time Magazine: January 1, 2000, page 34
Notebook (Author not listed)
The online poll is a curious beast. Time.com gathered votes for 21 months on the person, event, fraud, and worst idea of the century. But before the tallying could even begin, several hurdles had to be cleared: Jesus and Muhammad were ousted for chronological accuracy. Then the "bots," computer robots designed to stuff the e-box, had to be repelled. Having fought off these intruders, time.com found that voters had some strange preferences:
1. Elvis
Presley....................13.79%....................624,557
2. Yitzhak Rabin....................13.23%....................599,271
3. Adolf Hitler....................11.41%....................516,697
1. Elvis' teaching teens to
rock-n-roll....................13.46%....................52,583
2. Moon landing....................11.34%....................44,281
3. Gandhi's civil
disobediance....................10.81%....................42,231
1. J.R. Bob
Dobbs*....................20.46%....................43,284
2. Geraldo Rivera....................15.88%....................33,600
3. O.J. Simpson....................11.06%....................23,390
1. Prohibition....................8.16%
2. Programming decision that led to the Y2K bug....................8.06%
3. Geraldo's opening Al Capone's vault....................8.00%
Total "Worst" votes: 227,296. * J.R. is so
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang"
Newsgroups: alt.slack,alt.binaries.slack,alt.religion.subgenius
Subject: "J.R. IS SO," Says New TIME Mag
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2000 17:08:21 -0500
Organization: The SubGenius Foundation, Inc.
Message-ID: <070120001708215826%stang@subgenius.com>
I find it perfectly fitting that when Time Magazine finally acknowledged the existence of "Bob" Dobbs, they did it with a massive typo.
Time would NEVER have EVER allowed its readers to know of "Bob." But they were forced to, by taking VOTES in their ONLINE POLL for Person of the Century and Fraud of the Century. While the Time Editors-who-Know made Einstein their Person of the Century, the unfettered PEOPLE at large thought ELVIS PRESLEY was #1... and that J.R. "Bob" Dobbs was the century's greatest Fraud.
The point being that the greatest Fraud of the Century was a religious leader. "Bob" happened to be the ONLY religious leader that Time ALLOWED; otherwise it surely would have been a tie between Jerry Fallwel and L. Ron Hubbard.
The TIME pundits must have been utterly baffled. Even after they removed all the obvious computer-generated votes, Dobbs was still far and away the voters' choice for King Charlatan. The third choice Event of the Century, Gandhi's civil disobedience, got LESS VOTES than did "BOB".
Finally FORCED to acknowledge the existence of the Incarnate Personality of the Dobbshead when they revealed the poll results in their January 1 Commemorative Issue, they chose to single out DOBBS ALONE with a QUALIFICATION -- some sort of APOLOGY, probably. For not only his his name misspelled (minus the quotes), but his name alone on that list on Page 34 bears an ASTERIX.
And where does this ASTERIX lead, this asterix which purports to provide further information on this mysterious yet reviled "J.R. Bob Dobbs"?
It leads to this statement:
* J.R. is so
That's all it says. "J.R. is so"
No period, no dot dot dot... you can almost smell the "White-Out" from when the desperate, panicky assistant editor rushed down to the print room and, AT THE VERY LAST SECOND before MIDNIGHT Dec. 31 1999, DELETED the sentence about "Bob."
INCOMPLETELY.
PROOF!!! PROOF that Dobbs was behind this WHOLE STUPID AFFAIR. That flubbed censorship carries the UNMISTAKEABLE PSTENCH of ol' Pipe Face. Maybe it was "Bob" himself who snuck in there and stuck a strip of tape over that one LINE in the NEGATIVES or the PLATES or whatever they print from nowadays. Maybe it originally said, "J.R. is so FUCKING GREAT a fraud that you must go to http://www.subgenius.com NOW and GET $AVED!" or even "J.R. is so fraudulent that you should NOT send $30 to PO Box 140306 Dallas TX 75214."
But I like to think it simply says EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS:
J.R. is so.
As in, "Is not." "Is so." "Is not." "Is so."
J.R. is so.
Thank you, everyone who voted for "Bob"!
You got TIME off...
on the right foot!
-- this time around!
PERFORM THE SALUTE!!! EYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYI
--
Copyright 2000 by Rev. Ivan Stang / 2nd Orthodox Stangian
MegaFisTemple Lodge of People's Covenant Church of the
Wrath of Dobbs Yeti, Resurrected: PO Box 19355 Cleveland OH 44119
The SubGenius Foundation,Inc.: PO Box 140306 Dallas TX 75214
http://www.subgenius.com -- SubSITE of Slack / PRABOB
Fax:
216-738-0150
A few weeks ago, we published the results of our online poll in which folks submitted their two cents' worth on the movers and shakers, frauds and bloopers of the 20th century in "Readers Speak: Down with Geraldo" [NOTEBOOK, Jan. 1]. Under the category "Phony or Fraud of the 20th Century," we listed as first-place winner J.R. ("Bob") Dobbs, who earned 20.46% of the vote (Geraldo Rivera was second, and O.J. Simpson third). Just who is J.R. Dobbs?, some of you wanted to know. Unfortunately, an explanatory footnote failed to make it into print. Here's what it said: "J.R. is so phony that he doesn't exist." Dobbs is a very imaginary modern evangelical Protestant created online by an irreverant band that set up a website in his honor. You can find out about him at subgenius.com.