Not Me

Yesterday's news brought fresh tragedy, and the bar keeps getting higher. I don't know if it's possible for anything to be big enough to stun people into respect, but I haven't seen anything lately. Yesterday a plane went down over the Ukraine. Ukraine has had problems enough without the likes of this, but then so has the air carrier, Malaysian Airlines. No one can be left alone with sadness enough to reach a breaking point these days.

They say, incredibly enough, that the plane seems to have been shot down by a surface to air missile. Who did it remains unknown, and I confess I can't help but wonder why it would be done. I would understand if there'd been some kind of warning- a ransom demand seems logical. If terms weren't met, then I'd understand why the plane was shot down. If the plane posed some kind of threat (at least a perceived one), I'd understand. If someone fessed up and declared it a horrible accident, I'd understand. I don't understand yet. Maybe I will.

Something else I don't understand is how people react to a thing like this. That there should be jokes within hours of such horror is beyond me. Perhaps some mustered it up in minutes. I felt too dispirited to make jokes about much of anything yesterday, but others were apparently eager to take on this plane getting shot down. Maybe they felt the urge to help by neutralizing something very horrifying with humor. I don't think what I saw worked for that.

It does work to use jokes to ease a sad or scary situation. It helps if you don't aim at the people who are suffering. I saw a joke about the airline not being able to deliver passengers to their destination alive. I would have thought an airline with two disasters horrifically high in casualties has had enough, especially when the cause of the second- a damn missile- is not the kind of thing that diligent mechanics can do much about. I thought it was a lousy, mean joke.

Not that any joke would have been ok to me yesterday. I must be some kind of minority. I'm not very interesting in jumping on top of every tragedy and wringing a joke out of it like it's some kind of daredevil challenge. When a thing like this happens, I get very sad, and I let myself feel that way as long as I must. The next day I may feel well enough to make jokes, although probably not about that thing. I wish other people would wait a while even if they don't feel any human sadness inside over something as awful as this. I guess that's just not possible anymore.

The Worst Joke

There was a joke on the last episode of "Saturday Night Live" that I didn't care for. It was during the Weekend Update segment. The premise was about how the band Kiss wouldn't be performing at their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because there was disagreement about what lineup to use. In my opinion, that's a little complex of a premise, having two parts, but it's useable. The joke was how they also wouldn't do the performance because of the additional reason that they couldn't get off work at Radio Shack.

The joke's presentation included an amusing picture of the band in their makeup and Radio Shack uniforms. I don't deny it was amusing-looking. The trouble of the joke isn't where it got to, but where it began. We're asked to accept the logic of the band becoming so destitute that they are reduced to retail jobs. I just can't do it. The joke completely falls apart in that crucial element of logic. I expect a joke to make sense.

Not My Forte

Trolling is an interesting thing to me. You're trying to trick someone into believing something inflammatory in the hopes that you can get a rise out of them. In a way that's unsupportable. It's unkind to manipulate people, although it's hard to escape the feeling that some people having it coming. I guess there are different levels of trolling. I wouldn't do it except at a low level. It would have to be something mild, and I wouldn't want to leave someone with the wrong idea for long.

I don't think I'm very good at trolling. When I try it on Facebook or on Twitter, it gets no reaction. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I think I may be trying to convince people of something where they wouldn't know the difference either way. I try to find something where I can tweak it until it's just a hair on the wrong side of believability, but maybe I have that calibrated improperly. I like to think that I can deliver it in a straight enough way that I'm not tipping my hand, but I must just be picking the wrong material.

No Joke

They ought to regulate the use of humor the way they do with other things that are dangerous to the general public when misused. I myself would gladly volunteer to serve as Secretary of Humor, as I already have a fairly well-developed set of guidelines which I would make mandatory for all Americans, be they at home or abroad. I want to stress that it is no concern of the government whether humor offends. After all, people are entitled to their free speech. There are, however, always potential consequences when that right is exercised.

The main interest of this office should and will be to ensure that any intended humor fulfills all that the concept entails. Simply put, Americans will be immediately and severely penalized for failing to be funny when such is their intent. I appreciate that there is considerable subjectivity where humor is concerned, but Americans may trust that, like Justice Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it. Undoubtedly when my general set of parameters comes out it will allay any fears.