Still top of the list for me is Olin Shivers' 1994 acknowledgements to his scsh project:
>Who should I thank? My so-called ``colleagues,'' who laugh at me behind my back, all the while becoming famous on my work? My worthless graduate students, whose computer skills appear to be limited to downloading bitmaps off of netnews? My parents, who are still waiting for me to quit ``fooling around with computers,'' go to med school, and become a radiologist? My department chairman, a manager who gives one new insight into and sympathy for disgruntled postal workers?
>My God, no one could blame me -- no one! -- if I went off the edge and just lost it completely one day. I couldn't get through the day as it is without the Prozac and Jack Daniels I keep on the shelf, behind my Tops-20 JSYS manuals. I start getting the shakes real bad around 10am, right before my advisor meetings. A 10 oz. Jack 'n Zac helps me get through the meetings without one of my students winding up with his severed head in a bowling-ball bag. They look at me funny; they think I twitch a lot. I'm not twitching. I'm controlling my impulse to snag my 9mm Sig-Sauer out from my day-pack and make a few strong points about the quality of undergraduate education in Amerika.
>If I thought anyone cared, if I thought anyone would even be reading this, I'd probably make an effort to keep up appearances until the last possible moment. But no one does, and no one will. So I can pretty much say exactly what I think.
>Oh, yes, the acknowledgements. I think not. I did it. I did it all, by myself.
>looks like many "BBC Four Classic Documentaries Collection" programs of the last century get the same treatment
Fair enough, it may be that the warning is just a generic one slapped on all their old repeats, but I do think that commissioning a new ten minute introduction from Mary Beard is going above and beyond. I haven't seen it so didn't want to speak too much on it, but from what I gathered it's a mixture of measured praise and blame for Clarke's eurocentrism.
>I have Civilisation in hardcopy
It's a good series, I would recommend it if you haven't already seen it. (My biggest gripe with the BBC rebroadcasting it is that it prompted them to take down from youtube the copy I was in the middle of watching!) By the way, for a more xenophilic production of similar scope, you might wish to take a look at The Silk Road[0].
Seeing that this discussion is still going on (I'm impressed!) I shall provide an example which I believe fits the bill. Around the time you first asked the question I learnt that the BBC are currently re-airing a classic documentary series of theirs, Civilisation, by Kenneth Clarke. This is essentially a history of post-classical European civilisation from the end of the dark ages to the present day. The programme is what we would now call eurocentric in its focus, and it does celebrate that european culture, but it certainly doesn't denigrate any other, or claim that that of Europe is greater than any other. Nonetheless the BBC felt it necessary in rebroadcasting it to prepend a warning that the programme reflects the 'standards and attitudes of its time'[0]. What views are these which the BBC feels it necessary to disclaim? One can only assume it is the attitude of celebrating rather than denigrating western culture and history. The programme must not go out without warnings lest anyone get the impression that we appreciate our own civilisation! I believe that that can fairly be called oikophobia.
[0] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-the-bbc-censuring... They also commissioned a ten-minute preface talk by Mary Beard but as I couldn't watch this myself (it's only on the BBC iplayer for which I will not sign up) I shall refrain from comment.
As a lagniappe (not a word we have in my country, by the way), I share this rather cruel Pound story which may nonetheless, as it did me, amuse you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auberon_Waugh#Waugh.27s_views (2nd paragraph, or look for 'Pound')
>What's your explanation of why Pound went Fascist?
I'm not sure I particularly have one; I haven't read any of his longer political or cultural (i.e. non-literary) works. I just think it's silly to correlate an approach to translation that you dislike with fascism. Especially as I'm not sure it even makes sense on its own terms: I can only read your comment as 'lazy translator? Figures that he would be a fascist', but if I imagine the type of translation a fascist would approve of, the approach I picture is fastidious, fussy, concerned with fidelity to the point of stickler-ishness. (Isn't that from where we get 'grammar nazi'?)
And oh, well, since you ask I'll take a shy at it: my vague sense is that he became fascist because saw a society in decline due to it becoming more and more a sham society: opulence without virtue, power without vigour, money no longer tied to actually existing goods. (Of course, all of this shades easily into antisemitism.) He saw fascism as the answer; It's easier to see in retrospect that it wasn't.
When was this? I noticed chatGPT becoming succinct almost to the point of being standoffish about a week or two ago. Probably exacerbated by my having some custom instructions to tame its prior prolixity.
>Who should I thank? My so-called ``colleagues,'' who laugh at me behind my back, all the while becoming famous on my work? My worthless graduate students, whose computer skills appear to be limited to downloading bitmaps off of netnews? My parents, who are still waiting for me to quit ``fooling around with computers,'' go to med school, and become a radiologist? My department chairman, a manager who gives one new insight into and sympathy for disgruntled postal workers?
>My God, no one could blame me -- no one! -- if I went off the edge and just lost it completely one day. I couldn't get through the day as it is without the Prozac and Jack Daniels I keep on the shelf, behind my Tops-20 JSYS manuals. I start getting the shakes real bad around 10am, right before my advisor meetings. A 10 oz. Jack 'n Zac helps me get through the meetings without one of my students winding up with his severed head in a bowling-ball bag. They look at me funny; they think I twitch a lot. I'm not twitching. I'm controlling my impulse to snag my 9mm Sig-Sauer out from my day-pack and make a few strong points about the quality of undergraduate education in Amerika.
>If I thought anyone cared, if I thought anyone would even be reading this, I'd probably make an effort to keep up appearances until the last possible moment. But no one does, and no one will. So I can pretty much say exactly what I think.
>Oh, yes, the acknowledgements. I think not. I did it. I did it all, by myself.
https://scsh.net/docu/html/man.html