Entries Tagged 'Humor' ↓

Venezuela has banned “The Simpsons” as being too corrupting and replaced it with “Baywatch.” Isn’t “Baywatch” more corrupting than “The Simpsons”?

I wonder what Hugo Chavez has against “The Simpsons”? I would argue that satirical humor is intrinsically dangerous to an authoritarian state. Whereas hedonism functions as something like an opiate to the masses.

Thanks to Ned for giving the definitive answer to the great prophet Corky who is suing to erect a monument giving the principles of the religion he invented, that being only fair since a Utah town has a monument of the Ten Commandments. (See the post below). Ned’s handles it by taking the religion seriously, which is a great way of refuting bad ideas. His comment:

Well, if Summum is mind and the universe is a mental creation, why not enshrine that in a mental monument?

Plus if everything according to the Summum worldview is in motion, where would we put such a monument and where would we later go to find it?

Also, everything has its opposites. Sounds to me like this monument would be the opposite of the Ten Commandments monument. But wait, opposites are identical in nature, so why have two monuments of the same nature just differing in degrees?!?!?

If these thoughts don’t make sense at the moment, just wait. All paradoxes may be reconciled!

Can you think of other beliefs that can be exposed by taking them seriously?

Mark Steyn, the Canadian conservative, brings together insightful punditry and devastating humor. That is to say, he is a true satirist. For a sample of what a good writer he is, consider his description in a piece on fall of the house of Clintonof Bill Clinton’s famous televised walk to the stage to receive his party’s nomination:

Bill Clinton understood a crude rule of show business — that, if you behave like a star, there are plenty of people who’ll treat you like one. The apotheosis of this theory was his interminable ambulatory entrance down mile after mile of corridor at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, when Slick Willie finally out-Elvised Elvis — or, more accurately, out-Smarted the opening sequence of Get Smart. Apparently, no-one had thought to tell him to try to get within four miles of the stage before the introductory video ended. He was, by my calculations, outside the men’s room on Corridor G27, Sub-Basement Level 6 of the Staples Center. As he began the long, long, lo-oo-oo-oong televised walk to the podium the crowd watching the monitors cheered — and, 20 minutes later, after he’d strolled down the first three or four windowless tunnels of attractive luminous drywall, hung a left by the water cooler, taken the emergency stairs, cut across the stationery closet, moved smoothly through the boiler room and had still only reached the Coke machine on Sous-Mezzanine Level 4 and there was at least a mile and a half between him and the stage, and the Democratic activists out in the hall were beginning to figure they could get dinner and a movie and still be back in time for the last third of his walk-on, they were nevertheless still cheering. In effect, President Clinton dared them not to cheer. Tom Jones wouldn’t have risked it. Engelbert Humperdinck would have balked. But, after eight years of talking the talk, Bill walked the walk. In the hall, the delegates’ hands were raw, bleeding stumps, but the Slicker knew that if he started his entrance in Idaho those Dems would cheer him every step of the way.

But Steyn has turned his satire on Muslims, and so he is being dragged before Canada’s human rights courts. Read this account of his case and mourn the way Western civilization, in the name of its own invention of multi-culturalism, is repudiating its liberties, persecuting its defenders, and committing cultural suicide.

Michael Kinsley has written a hilarious take on the New York Times story about John McCain: McCain and the Times: The Real Questions. A sample:

Many readers of last week’s New York Times article about McCain, including me, read that article as suggesting that Sen. McCain may have had an affair with a lobbyist eight years ago. The Times, however, has made clear that its story was not about an affair with a lobbyist. Its story was about the possibility that eight years ago, aides to McCain had held meetings with McCain to warn him about the appearance that he might be having an affair with the lobbyist.

This is obviously a much more important question. To be absolutely clear: the Times itself was not suggesting that there had been an affair, or even that there had been the appearance of an affair. The Times was reporting that there was a time eight years ago when some people felt there might be the appearance of an affair, although others, apparently including Sen. McCain himself, apparently felt that there was no such appearance.

Similarly, I am not accusing the New York Times of screwing up again by publishing an insufficiently sourced article then defending itself with a preposterous assertion that it wasn’t trying to imply what it obviously was trying to imply. I am merely reporting that some people worry that other people might be concerned that the New York Times has created the appearance of screwing up once again.

What I wrote was that some people had expressed concern that the Times article might have created the appearance of charging that McCain had had an affair. My critics have charged that I was charging the Times with charging McCain with having had an affair. Such a charge would be unfair to the New York Times, since the Times article, if you read it carefully (very carefully), does not make any charge against McCain except that people in a meeting eight years ago had suggested that other people eight years ago might reach a conclusion — about which the Times expressed no view whatsoever — that McCain was having an affair.

The piece goes on and on, creating level after level of possibilities of appearances.

Politico.com features drawings from M. Wuerker that depict the GOP candidates as cartoon characters: McCain is Popeye; Romney is Richie Rich; Huckabee is Huckleberry Hound; Giuliani is Bat Man; Ron Paul is a character whom I can’t identify (is it Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes? does anyone know?) in a flying saucer; and Thompson is Foghorn Leghorn:

There isn’t a Democratic version. Could anyone propose cartoon alter egos for Clinton, Obama, and Edwards?

The Washington Post has a feature called the Style Invitational, in which readers are encouraged to make humorous or snarky contributions to a weekly topic. This time readers were challenged to come up with tourism slogans for various countries. Some of the better ones:

France: Visit, If You Must. (Sigh.) (Martin Bancroft, Rochester, N.Y.)

China: Come Visit Your Money (Ira Allen, Bethesda)

Denmark: Oh, So Nothing’s Rotten in YOUR Country? (Brendan Beary)

England: We Couldn’t Beat the Patriots Either (Bruce Evans, Arlington)

Germany: Genocide Free Since 1945! (Cy Gardner, Arlington)

India: For More Information Press 1 (Matthew Morris, Rockville, MD)

Iran: We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 999 (Brendan Beary)

Mexico: A Little Less Crowded Every Day (Dan Milam, Paducah, Ky)

Qatar: Wish U Were Here (Barry Koch)

Now it’s YOUR turn. . .