This Onion Makes You Cry Tears…of Laughter.
In the controversy over whether or not it is seemly (red-blooded, or bloody-minded) to celebrate the killing of Osama bin Laden, which I have been engaged in on Facebook as well as here, The Onion, as usual, struck the perfect note.
This caused me to track down The Onion‘s daring, endearing, pitch-perfect right-after-9/11 issue, which I remember so vividly as a great comfort. Please revisit it too.
And here is a Publishers Weekly blog post that gives a bit of the backstory of what it was like to try to get that issue right.
Humor, like beauty, is so much more powerful and subtle and efficient than argument. Argument can only go “On the one hand . . . on the other hand.” Heavy hands, both of them. Humor, like beauty, can say it all in one feather-light stroke.
Ambiance 
Tim (formerly Theo Boehm) said,
May 2, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Jeez! Am I going to have to get on Facebook, too? I mean, it’s bad enough I have to tweet, now that Althouse and her commenters have stolen my soul and sapped my will to blog.
Facebook?? I don’t know how you can be on that without putting up your entire DNA sequence, a full-body CAT scan, all your school transcripts, your entire financial history, all your Google searches, and the notes you passed to Susie in the 6th grade.
Althouse seems to think she will live forever in her blog once the Singularity takes hold around 2030 and Google becomes the World Brain. That may happen, but I suspect Blogger will be another body part.
Anyway, it seems to me Facebook already collects enough information about its members to ease them through the transition to a totally silicon-based existence much sooner than that.
Personally, being the old-fashioned sort, I’m hoping to actually die and mostly disappear, except for a few pictures, letters, and the odd instrument or two I’ve made. All distressingly analog. I’m just not prepared for an Afterlife dependent on whether someone pays the electric bill or keeps the server farm air conditioned.
Max? Max?? Is that you?
They’re coming to get me!
amba12 said,
May 3, 2011 at 12:17 am
I suspect Blogger will be another body part.
How lovely to muse on which one.
Ron said,
May 3, 2011 at 12:44 am
You need to see the Onion’s book of Front Pages of newspapers called “Our Dumb Century”
amba12 said,
May 3, 2011 at 12:48 am
I have it.