by hilzoy
From the Washington Post:
“Three college students, including two aspiring actors known around campus as pranksters, were arrested Wednesday in a string of nine church fires across Alabama.
Federal agents said the defendants claimed the first few fires were set as “a joke” and the others were started to throw investigators off the track.”
There’s a similar story in the NYT:
“A witness, unidentified in the affidavit, told agents that Matthew Cloyd said he and Mr. Moseley “had done something stupid,” adding that it was something Mr. Moseley had done “as a joke and it got out of hand.”
Agents later interviewed Mr. Moseley who, they said, confessed to setting the five fires in Bibb County with Mr. Cloyd and Mr. DeBusk. “Moseley stated that after they set fire to the first two churches, they saw fire trucks driving by,” they said. “Moseley said that, after that, burning the other three churches became too spontaneous.”
Agents said Mr. Moseley told them only that he and Mr. Cloyd had taken part in the second string of arsons, four days later. “These four churches were burned as a diversion, to throw investigators off,” Mr. Johnson wrote in his affidavit. “Moseley said the diversion obviously did not work.””
I don’t get this. Here’s a joke:
Why do elephants paint their toenails green?
— So that they can hide on pool tables.
Does it work?
— Have you ever seen an elephant on a pool table?
Ha ha ha.
Some jokes are meaner: back when I was growing up, I knew someone who claimed to have called people named ‘Whitehead’, ask for ‘Mr. Blackhead’, and then, when the person on the other end of the line said ‘This is the Whitehead residence’, said: “I’m so sorry; I must have had the wrong pimple.” This reduced us all to hysterics when I was eight.
But burning down churches? Is there something funny about it that I’m missing? In what possible world is that a joke?
I’m glad they got caught. I hope they develop a better sense of humor in prison.
Something about burning three churches is better than a burning bush in the hand. Probably really, really, funny after about dozen budweisers from the can.
“I mean, I’ll kill a man in a fair fight…or if I think he might want to have a fair fight…
But eating people alive? When does that get fun?”
A. Liberals have no sense of humor.
B. To get to the other side.
C. No soap radio.
When one is bored and drunk, many acts commonly considered to be lacking in levity are revealed to be hilarious.
Nice, Trilobite.
Or, “Mercy is the mark of a great man.”
*Burns church.*
“Guess I’m just a good man.”
*Burns church.*
“Well, I’m ok.”
Alfred North Whitehead HATED eight-year-olds.
Some items from both these sources needed further explanation (not mere investigation as we are accustomed): Which Church was burned first and which ones were burned as after-thoughts/diversionary/out of control innocent bystanders? Did they get any deer and if so were they shot legally or Cheney style? Do they have membership in any political organizations? Do the good families of these young men have good words in defence of their son’s actions?
Do we have any good words on behalf of Wapo or NYT in defending their shallow reporting?
Even if you accept that the first time was a joke (see doesn’t mean what you think above) what about the next time? One would think that after you had some time to see and think about the response to your first ‘joke’ that you might want to reevaluate how funny it was. And if not the second time, certainly by the third, or fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or seventh, or eighth time. But I guess that implies some empathy, which these soon to be incarcerated jokesters apparently do not have.
This joke is on the borderline of good taste (which side of the boderline? You can judge that for yourself), but it is certainly funnier than burning a church (it also is allegedly the most popular joke in Australia):
A man walks into his bedroom with a sheep under his arm. He says, “This is the pig I have sex with when you have a headache.” His wife looks at him and says, “You idiot, that is clearly a sheep not a pig.” He says, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
This one has provoked howls of laughter every time anyone says something like “I wasn’t talking to you”. But I work in a rather sick place.
🙂
I agree with Barry: the whole problem is that liberals have no sense of humor.
Hey, they never understood lynching, or Josef Mengele, or those cut-ups in the South Dakota legislature, either….
Sebastian,
I’ve heard something else as the most popular joke in Australia (although this was 20 years ago, so tastes may have changed). It’s also in questionable taste, which may say something about the Bruces and Sheilas.
This story takes place in Tazmania, where the most sophisticated Australians do not live. A traveling salesman was going on his route, when he suddenly had two blowouts. Since he had only one spare, he needed to seek help (this was before cell phones).
He saw a run-down shack nearby and walked to it. On the porch was a scraggly-looking 10 year old boy. The salesman said to him, “Hey kid, is your dad home?”
“Naw, he got killed in a bar fight 3 years ago, that’s what he did.”
“Is your mom home?”
“Naw, she run off with the barman, she did.”
“Do you have any older brothers or sisters?”
“I’ve got a brother, but he ain’t here, he’s at the doctor school in Sydney.”
The salesman was dumbstruck. Coming from a background like this, and making it to medical school!
“What’s your brother do at the medical school?”
“Do? He don’t do nothing. He’s got two heads. He lives in a jar.”
Mechanic: Looks like you blew a seal.
Penguin: Nope, it’s just ice cream.
With my apologies. I know lots worse, but none that wouldn’t be much more blatantly against posting rules.
Australian lurker here.. just saying that I’ve never heard either of those jokes in my life.
Why we would be mocking our own country also befuddles me. Certainly any Australian gag involving sexual relations with sheep would have the protagonist as a New Zealander. The Tasmanian gag I can believe, though I’ve never heard it.
Now Slart’s joke, I’ve heard.
Slight edit – noticed that only subsets of country (Tasmanians) mocked. Go ahead – I’m not from there :).
“C. No soap radio.”
I’m sure that every time I’ve heard that, since childhood, it was “no soap, radio.”
I’m sure that even when I was 6, I was focused on where the comma went, and why it changed the entire meaning of the sentence.
It’s why you love me.
The things we love about Gary….
🙂
Ok, only edward loves that about Gary. I like the semi-colon discussions.