This is what passes for humor in the Observer/Guardian. A ‘humorous’ timeline since 9/11. Some tidbits:
September 19th: The pop singer Michael Jackson is refused permission to lie down and sing songs from his new album into the World Trade Centre rubble. Jackson is reported to have been a ‘nuisance presence’ at Ground Zero – foisting cheaply embroidered MJ handkerchiefs on to grieving relatives and incessantly moondancing into the paths of rescue workers.
October 7th: Bush announces the start of Operation Bomb Islamics. He tells the US that coalition members agree this title is not offensive to ‘good Muslims’. This is confirmed in a hastily written episode of The West Wing in which a good Muslim is played by Jeff Goldblum.
October 9th: US bombs hit a Red Cross emergency centre on the outskirts of Kabul, but the Pentagon refuses to apologise, blaming the Red Cross logo for ‘looking like the crosshairs on a viewfinder’. Spokesman Paul Wolfowitz says: ‘I’d ask this clearly self-loathing organisation to change its suicidal insignia before they kill us all.’ The Red Cross complies immediately and changes its logo to a blue baseball hat.
February 9th: WTC legal fall-out. A New York banker whose car was hit by a man jumping out of the burning north tower is suing the dead man’s estate because he failed to curl up into a neat ball to minimise the damage. The city of New York is to sue firms occupying the upper 38 storeys of both towers because as they crashed earthwards, they added hugely to the numbers of people on the lower floors, thus ‘momentarily breaking fire regulations’.
Funny stuff, people jumping from burning buildings, mass murder, accidental war casualties. Is Ted Rall British?