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Who is that girl whose one leg is shorter than the other?
Eileen
No, how do you tell?
What if she’s Japanese?
Irene.
To get serious for just a moment: it used to be that progress was a melting pot. Now, progress is the Jets and Sharks eternally at war, for there can be no mixing as appropriation is evil. No, the peas must never touch the mashed potatoes which should be kept far away from the meat loaf – and don’t even think about adding curry to any of these American foods you imperialist bigot! We’re either supposed to encase existing cultures in amber to die off from stagnation as museum pieces or we’re supposed to battle each other for dominance first (except white people who should just roll over and die apparently) and then encase the winners and losers in amber to die off in the museum of Western Civ.
You know, thinking about this more it occurs to me that all this seems to be, has been, and probably will ever be the domain of male humor. Do chicks, er I mean women, join in on this type of humor? Few examples I can think of.
Well Arahant, I know that you can tell an epileptic corn-husker because they shuck between fits, but I forgot the rest. I’m terrible with punchlines…
Got it.
There’s a difference between the “too soon” type jokes that make light of a horrible recent event, and dead-baby / HK jokes, right? On 9.12.01 a co-worker made a joke about the previous day and I didn’t speak to him for 15 years. It was so, so wrong to do that.
Yes, there is. Both tasteless, but one certainly shows less grace.
I get it, but things like not speaking for 15 years, refusing admission to college, or not hiring all seem like drastic reactions to me. And for what? Not actions, not eternal declarations, but poor taste. Ok I guess.
Interesting.
To this day I can’t recall ever hearing *any* 9/11 jokes, unless I’ve blocked them out. The one thing that comes closest is the photoshop of the guy on the observation deck of the tower with the plane coming in behind, but that wasn’t really a “joke” (although all of the take-offs on it, with Godzilla, or the sta-puff marshmallow man, etc in the background certainly were).
I can remember a bunch of Jeffrey Dahmer jokes (“Be careful moving that refrigerator – if you drop it, heads will roll”), and we went through a bunch of Challenger jokes in the PIT (“No, I said Bud Light”).
But not a single 9/11 joke comes to mind.
I have never heard a 9/11 joke.
But… the French killed more Germans in the Concorde crash than in two world wars.
I had to search the Internet to find the joke I posted in the OP about Al Qaeda’s favorite football team. There were pages of them. I had never heard any, either.
What’s the chunkiest part of vegetable soup?
.
.
.
.
The Wheelchair
Unexpected. Got a great laugh out of me. Thanks.
Two homosexuals?
Neal and Bob
Floating in the water?
Bob
Not a joke but I remember the apocryphal story of the American who goes to a bar in Dublin and orders an Irish car bomb. Bartender comes back with two tall shot glasses, lights them on fire, and calls it the twin towers.
How many Branch Davidians can you fit in a car?
2 in front, 3 in back and 81 in the ashtray
The wikipedia article on 9/11 jokes references the issue of the Onion that came out a few weeks after that was dedicated to the 9/11 attacks. I remember that issue. The main headline was “9/11 hijackers surprised to find themselves in Hell”, and there was also an article titled “What part of Thou Shalt Not Kill do you people not understand, angry God asks”. So not really “9/11 jokes”.
According to the wiki article, they self-censored one article titled “America Stronger than Ever, Say Quadragon officials”.
That’s funny now, would not have been at the time. At all.
On your porch?
Matt
What were Christa McAuliffe’s last words?
What does this button do?
Arahant, you posted something, just like you said you would.
I still think it’s your very first post, despite your claim that you’ve made over 300 of them.
BTW, I don’t know any tasteless jokes outside of that dead prostitute limerick I included within my poetry post a few days ago. I don’t suppose limericks count, though, since almost all are tasteless.
I think you claim too much —“the glue that held us together” — for the proliferation of tasteless jokes in the past. Tasteless jokes are merely tiny, naughty pimples on the body politic. I may be minimizing their importance, however, because I don’t know any.
Good post, Mr. Weatherford. I look forward to your second one.
Look down the Member Feed, @kentforrester. This was my second today. The other was a sonnet.
From back in the day when the National Lampoon wrote its own letters to the editor:
Have you seen Ray Charles’s new piano? No? That’s OK; neither has he.
That was cruel, but he’ll never know.
Stevie Wonder
Ya all hear about the newest German microwave?
Seats 9 people.
I agree.
Dudes rib in order to bond and build trust. It is a kind of masculine love and women mostly don’t play – although becoming ‘one of the guys’ probably requires participation.
The loss of this not-so-very-gentle art has left us with a lot of lawsuits and HR complaints. Were there HR departments before women joined the work force?
Women in the work force predated HR departments by thousands of years.
I have had to point this out to a number of women I have worked with – guys insulting each other doesn’t necessarily mean they dislike each other; sometimes it is a sign of affection. Mrs. Tabby also understands it and has needed to explain it to some of her girlfriends.
I remember that issue. The tried to hard on the jokes and I didn’t care. I needed them to be funny.
There was a piece about someone baking a red white and blue cake that really worked for me as it caught the national mood.
Why do babies have soft spots on their heads?
So you can carry five at a time in an emergency.