Doug's Darkworld

Another week gone, who knows how many more to go. Where are we going anyhow? I was reminded this week of the English Joke Telling Society. They meet on Monday to tell each other jokes. They meet on Tuesday to laugh at them. Then on Friday they meet to explain them to each other. I’m guessing Englishmen aren’t renowned for their joke telling abilities. And in that vein, geeze, I sometimes wonder if anyone gets my jokes. Monday’s post, the one about mysterious disappearances. The Hanging Rock one was a joke, but if anyone noticed they said nothing. I mean, a picnic area where dozens of people vanish every year, how likely is that? And Wombat infested, that didn’t tweak anyone? Wombats are harmless herbivores, notable only for producing square turds. Hardly a danger to people. Oh well, I got a good laugh out of it. I crack myself up sometimes. I probably need help.

Reminds me of another joke. So this fellow gets invited to a fancy private club for supper with a friend. He goes, nice dining room, all sorts of people sitting around enjoying a good time. One odd thing though. Every once and awhile some stands up, shouts out a number, and then the whole room laughs. The guest is puzzled, so he asks his friend what’s the deal with the shouted number? His friend tells him the club members like to tell jokes, but the club has been around so long they’ve heard them all before, so they just assigned numbers to them to save time.

Well, the fellow thinks, that’s easy. He waits till a quiet moment, stands up, and shouts out “Nineteen!” Dead silence. OK, he tries again. “Forty Two!” Crickets. Desperate he tries again. “Seventy One!” Not a chuckle to be heard, though a lot of people are looking at him funny. Embarrassed, he sits back down. He asked his friend, what happened? His friend looked at him sadly and said “Some people just aren’t very good at telling jokes.” Speaking of jokes, most posts I write have at least one link just for laughs.

Speaking of laughs, this news story made me laugh. A huge kerfluffle was triggered when a black High School senior’s quote was accidentally included in a yearbook. Big deal, stickers provided to cover the offensive quote, charges of racism, and apologies all around. And what horribly racist quote got published in the yearbook? “Going to this school helped me discover my cracker allergy.” Oh dear, the mental anguish suffered by the poor people who read the quote. Will the horrors of reverse racism ever end?

OK, yes, the quote was inappropriate. Oh well, TTH*. It’s enclosure in the yearbook was an act of vandalism, not deliberate. The girl did submit it, but in jest, it would not normally have been approved. And if it had been deliberate, so what? Any white person getting their knickers in a twist about this needs to examine their white fragility. Cracker is not the same as the n word, because it’s not backed up by centuries of systematic racism. Especially since her comment was more a reflection of just how white her High School was than anything else.

In a last amusing note, someone posted this in one of my Facebook debate groups. I don’t recommend it, and even hate linking it, but this is it. An article claiming their is scientific evidence for dream telepathy. Fascinating on multiple levels. First, on the pure science level, no one has ever done a replicable study demonstrating telepathy. And no plausible mechanism has yet been proposed to allow telepathy. So right now, science says telepathy doesn’t exist. Secondly, the article itself is a masterpiece of how to construct false arguments. Almost every other line is one, it’s breathtaking really.

Lastly, boy, just google <dream telepathy> and page after page of similar articles pop up. Woo illustrated. A huge number of folks see this as gospel. I sometimes wonder if the rise in modern conspiracy thinking is just human predilection for religion taking on new forms. Fodder for a future blog. Or not.

OK then, ending with some  serious stuff. I thought about a D-Day post, but I think I’ve done enough of them. There have been lots of other battles in history, a few even more important than D-Day. Still, researching the topic came across the sad story of the Canadians massacred in the days after D-Day. That’s what the cover pic is about. Basically the 12th SS Panzer was manned and led by Nazi fanatics, and the order was given not to take prisoners. The leader of the unit served only nine years for his crimes. Sheesh. God rest the souls of all those who were murdered in the Battle of Normandy.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Copyright © 2019 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Memorial to Canadian prisoners of war executed in the garden of the Ardenne Abbey, in the Calvados region of Normandy in France. Credit: Wikipedia, permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.)