This is a poem for the IRAS show of 1999,
heavily based on speeches, events, etc. of that week.
The tune is Gilbert and Sullivan's "Modern Major General"
 

(1)1 am the very model of a modern IRAS officer:
I took one course in science and had lunch with a philosopher.
I walked around Star Island with an expert on geology
Which qualifies me now to lecture on epistemology.

I hold to sev'ral doctrines that are new and most heretical,
They are consistent with the Dao and also antithetical.
Of self-manifestation you will find I'm  no discreditor,
For I've a special bond with the Star Beacon s daily editor!

I'm developing a hermeneutic Tantric teleology,
Improving my lordosis through electro-physiology:
In matters anatomical, just ask our chief astronomer,
I am the very model of  a modern  IRAS officer.

(2) I've  spent much time in quantifying Celtic stone mythology,
Insurable alternatives to infant traumatology.
I try to treat all parties with offense that is proportionate,
Supporting happy hour with donations not extortionate.

By  meditating  hotly I've  become a perspirationer
In sex I am participant and also contemplationer.
And since I've been the father of an Oceanic Pelican,
I've found my mouth can take in food much faster than my belly can.

I  support bare-ing both arms and other portions anatomical,
And hope to change some laws which are both civil and canonical.
In matters constitutional, just ask any pornographer,
I am the very model of a  modern IRAS officer.

(3) On certain problems I take the approach utilitarian,
An easy way for telling the reptilian from mammalian.
And I've a strategy of solipsistic rationality
Demystifying procarytic social sexuality.

I've an int'rest categorical in psychopharmacology
Which helps me when I study Augustinian theology,
And as for courtship rituals, I have a certain Je-n'-sais-quoi,
Learnt from a tribe of primates near the mouth of the Piscataqua.

So now when I am faced with any problem that s draconian,
I always seek an answer that is thoroughly Zygonian.
And as for haberdashery, just ask the group photographer,
I am the very model of a modem IRAS officer.