Tag: humor

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general freedom media and media people

The Pumpkinification of Snopes

Babylon Bee, Snopes, fake news, satire

Satire exaggerates not just for a laugh, often employing the reductio ad absurdum for cutting effect — casting our attention on human follies and crimes. 

While the classic literary satires include Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis (divi) Claudii — “The Pumpkinification of (the Divine) Claudius” — and Jonathan Swift’s 1729 “Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick,” we nowadays often turn to humor websites, like The Onion.

Or, increasingly, The Babylon Bee.

Last week, as I set out for the Far East, the Bee story that topped the page was “New Genderfluid Dolls Emit Blast Of Pepper Spray, Alert Authorities When Children Use Wrong Pronoun.” On the same date I caught “Man Sure Is Glad He Switched From E-Cigs To Regular, Healthier Cigarettes.”* And laughed until I coughed.

Worthy of The Onion, sure, but better than most recent Onion efforts. 

How did the Bee leap to the forefront of modern satire? Well, it’s a Christian site, actually, which seems to help. The Bee’s writers do not accept any dominant strain of contemporary culture as an admirable norm — like today’s “woke comics” must — so it is easier to find the absurdities in this current epoch’s conflicted and contradictory politics and culture.

The Bee so effectively lampoons dominant culture that snopes.com, the progressives’ most popular (putative) fact checking site, warned that the Bee’s great Chick-fil-A satire confused some readers because it “altered some details of a controversial news story.”

Satire is funny. Not getting satire? Priceless.

The Babylon Bee’s biggest competition may not be The Onion.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Nick Gillespie of Reason mentions some titles that caught his attention: “‘Trump Is Being Influenced by The Russians, Screams Communist!’ and ‘Woke Polar Bear Apologizes for Being White.’ Classics include ‘Trump Proves He’s Not A Racist By Showing His Rejection Letter From The KKK’ and ‘Local Christian Would Do Anything For Jesus Except Believe Things That Are Unpopular.’”

Babylon Bee, Snopes, fake news, satire

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Accountability media and media people national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Jokesters in Power

Donald Trump, comedian, stand up, kidding, term limit, dictator, joke, humor, King

Ronald Reagan was known to make a jest or two. After being shot, he joked with his surgeons about their partisanship. In front of a hot mic, he shocked the media by saying he had “signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever,” and that bombing would begin “in five minutes.”

The down-homey half-quips of George W. Bush turned malaprop into something almost endearing — to some. And Barack Obama’s appearances on talk shows were often well-crafted comedy routines.

So, let’s not take President Donald Trump’s recent quip in honor of China’s President Xi Jingping too seriously.

Let’s not freak out just yet.

Sure, he seemed to favor Xi’s moves to remove the constitutional term limits placed upon him. But, not reported in much of the coverage, was the tone.

Trump was joking.

“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”

That is supposed to be funny. Trump does have good comic timing and delivery. Hillary Clinton not so much.* That may be one of the reasons he squeaked into the White House.

But to take it all seriously for a moment. What Trump is talking about is basically an elected king. Which is precisely what Alexander Hamilton first pitched in Philadelphia, so long ago. It was struck down — along with most of his nationalist agenda — by the convention. But he did “give it a shot.”

And was it entirely unrelated that Thomas Jefferson’s first Vice President later gave Hamilton a shot?

Too soon?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Just compare how Barack Obama killed with UFO material, and how Hillary seemed to be several degrees too clumsy at it.

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folly government transparency media and media people national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

Peel Back the Onion

The Onion, satire, humor, CFPB, bureaucracy

Yesterday, an Onion title caught my attention: “Hooded Members of Congress Drown Another Love Child in the Potomac to Prevent Affair from Getting Out.” This is not funny because it is true, but because it is so close to the truth. Too close for comfort.

A similar story, the day before, sported a title so sublime that you do not really need to read further: “Al Franken Tearfully Announces Intention To Step Down From Role As Harasser Of Women.” The week before that, another satire gave us this extravaganza: “Paul Ryan Announces New Congress Sexual Harassment Training Will Create Safe Work Atmosphere, Plausible Deniability.”

But sex scandals are easy. If The Onion were seriously in the satire biz, the farcical-on-the-surface nonsense of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brouhaha that I wrote about on Tuesday would get incisive treatment as well.

My advice to Onion writers? Don’t go halfway into the problem, like David A. Graham does in The Atlantic: “The Fight Over the CFPB Reveals the Broken State of American Politics.” Sure, that’s true. But concluding that “neither party sees the political process as effective in resolving these basic issues is worrying” hardly goes far enough, and the next line — “the fact that they might both be right is worse still” — shies from the full extent of the predicament.

The Constitution was designed to avoid problems like the CFPB nonsense. Start there. Something like this comes close: “Politicians Shocked, Shocked to Discover That an Un-Constitutional, Partisan Bureau Becomes Subject to Constitutional Dispute Along Partisan Lines.”

I have confidence that, if The Onion went there, it’d be funnier.

Even without a sex angle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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