How strange - it's unclear to me whether this was even looking to raise a reaction - maybe, simply, not.
Even with our love of black humour, the intermittent IRA bombing campaigns in London, UK were seldom joked about here - and were taken equally seriously in Ireland, as far as I can tell. If fun was made, this was an overt response to something genuinely frightening, not a frivolous dismissal of it.
I have grown up with the awareness of bombs as a risk, and physically heard and seen the aftermath of more than one. For example a mercifully very small bomb went off in the street 500 yards from my workplace in the West End, and at the other extreme, a very large one rattled the windows of my North London home from nearly two miles away.
I mistrust all concepts of line-in-the-sand unacceptability - no subject cannot be acknowledged through comedy, tragedy, silliness and all points between. But belittlement is the most potent of them all - calling for the greatest tact and care.
Thanks. I do think this could be something a cretin thought was an innocuous bit of humor. The American media is saturated with hate speech from the likes of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Beck, et al. Then the 'mainstream media' promotes the lie that "both sides do it." Really? Who on the left engages in anything resembling the hate mongering of those three and the scores of others in the right wing blogosphere? It's not just about manners, either. A recent study revealed that regular viewers of Fox "News" were wildly less (mis-) informed about national and world current events than citizens too lazy to consume any news media at all. Being ignorant beats being lied to.
Assuming the cupcakes thing was meant to be a joke, I wonder if the author even realizes that the Irish troubles weren't some little disturbance passed over as background setting in a movie—that people died in these acts.
I just heard a guy on NPR talking about brains and their makeup. He did not seem to have an agenda politically. He said that the brain of a hardened conservative has a greater fear response mechanism and that the brain of a hardened liberal has a greater empathic response mechanism, partially explaining why there doesn't seem to be any toxic left wing talk radio.
6 comments:
Definitely!
How strange - it's unclear to me whether this was even looking to raise a reaction - maybe, simply, not.
Even with our love of black humour, the intermittent IRA bombing campaigns in London, UK were seldom joked about here - and were taken equally seriously in Ireland, as far as I can tell. If fun was made, this was an overt response to something genuinely frightening, not a frivolous dismissal of it.
I have grown up with the awareness of bombs as a risk, and physically heard and seen the aftermath of more than one. For example a mercifully very small bomb went off in the street 500 yards from my workplace in the West End, and at the other extreme, a very large one rattled the windows of my North London home from nearly two miles away.
I mistrust all concepts of line-in-the-sand unacceptability - no subject cannot be acknowledged through comedy, tragedy, silliness and all points between. But belittlement is the most potent of them all - calling for the greatest tact and care.
I'd say it shows a well defined sense of cynism - which unfortunately deserves its place in this world.
Albeit not so much in business advertisement, I think.
Richard,
Thanks. I do think this could be something a cretin thought was an innocuous bit of humor. The American media is saturated with hate speech from the likes of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Beck, et al. Then the 'mainstream media' promotes the lie that "both sides do it." Really? Who on the left engages in anything resembling the hate mongering of those three and the scores of others in the right wing blogosphere? It's not just about manners, either. A recent study revealed that regular viewers of Fox "News" were wildly less (mis-) informed about national and world current events than citizens too lazy to consume any news media at all. Being ignorant beats being lied to.
Assuming the cupcakes thing was meant to be a joke, I wonder if the author even realizes that the Irish troubles weren't some little disturbance passed over as background setting in a movie—that people died in these acts.
I just heard a guy on NPR talking about brains and their makeup. He did not seem to have an agenda politically. He said that the brain of a hardened conservative has a greater fear response mechanism and that the brain of a hardened liberal has a greater empathic response mechanism, partially explaining why there doesn't seem to be any toxic left wing talk radio.
Apparently an "Irish Car Bomb" is a cocktail.
Cupcake recipe is here.
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