Question:
At what point does a truly horrific event enter the popular culture landscape in such a way that it becomes socially acceptable to laugh at it?

The JFK assassination has long since become an easy target for merriment.

I think we’ve passed the point where it’s acceptable to mock school shootings… as long as you’re not actually attending K-12.

Some people have a problem with singing chirpy songs while being bled to death in the same manner as a Messiah figure.

9/11 is probably still a bit too… edgy.

Hitler is tossed around casually enough that Howard Dean and George W. Bush have both been compared to him.

On the market right now is a bizarre deriviation of an certain serial killer that you eat as part of an unbalanced diet.

A few hundred years from now, we’ll be choking on Osamiques. Why Osamiques? Because the cutsey “o” endings to mockowords will fall out of fashion… (Does that mean that the French will enjoy some cultural expansion? Nay… I’m thinking more along the lines of the Quebecers…)

Anyway…

Bring in the Conspiracy theories…

Where the heck’s all the blood?

“…the CIA did it to take the heat off the Pentagon”–NBC reporter stated tonight prime time news, continuing, “…a story that will not die easily here in the Arab world”.

“No hay manera que el individuo en el video estaba vivo y su corazon funcionando cuando le estaban cortando la cabeza. En estos casos, el corazon impela sangre con gran presion, y se corta las arterias del pezqueso, hay una gran cantidad de sangre que salpica por todos lados. En mi opinion el video es un fraude.”

–Doctor Raul Castro Guevara

Oh, I find it very interesting, because out of the blue, there is a mention of al Qaeda on the U.S. government translation. It says: “Does al Qaeda need any further excuses?” Any speaker of the Arabic language is going to notice a difference between the word al Qaeda, which means “the base,” and al qaed, which means “the one sitting, doing nothing.”

My translation says: “Is there any excuse for the one who sits down and does nothing?” Basically they’re telling people, you have no excuse for not doing anything, for not acting and defending Islam and so forth. Whereas the U.S. government translation has this factual error, I’m sure it’s an honest mistake, but basically it sort of adds al Qaeda to the statement, which is not on the statement.

— CNN transcript, CNN SR. EDITOR FOR ARAB AFFAIRS Octavia Nasr

One of the clues the FBI and CIA is studying is the large gold ring Zarqawi is wearing on his right hand, giving off a glare several times during the six-minute tape.

There are the ingredients. Toss the salad whichever way you want to toss that salad.

“Let the eagle soar,

Like she’s never soared before.

From rocky coast to golden shore,

Let the mighty eagle soar.

Soar with healing in her wings,

As the land beneath her sings:

‘Only god, no other kings.’

This country’s far too young to die.

We’ve still got a lot of climbing to do,

And we can make it if we try.

Built by toils and struggles

God has led us through.”

http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/02/25/ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.html

Cut and pasted from the forum over here. No, I don’t believe in aliens…

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US First Lady Laura Bush says she was deeply saddened by the scandal over US troops’ abuse of Iraq prisoners. Saying the abuses made her “sad, really sad,” the first lady told ABC television: “To be perfectly frank I can’t bear to look at the ones that have been in the newspaper.

“It is really, really sad, I mean, it is sad. I think we — we agonize as each of those pictures come out and as we see them. It is a picture we don’t want the rest of the world to have of us,” she said, adding that she was concerned about US troops safety noting the scandal “makes our troops more vulnerable.”

She said President George W. Bush had been “very anguished” by the affair which has done serious damage to the US image abroad, and especially in the Arab world.

“Those photographs don’t represent America. They don’t represent our troops. And they don’t represent the way people in the United States of America think or act, Laura Bush added. “It is not a fair picture of the United States military”

“When we look at what we have done in Iraq where — you know they have water, they have electricity, schools have been refurbished. I’m working on building a children’s hospital in Iraq,” the US first lady said.

“In Afghanistan, where little girls are in school for the first time in their lives because they have been liberated from the Taliban, I think all of those are the really good things that the United States military and the actions of the United States government have taken. We need to remind the world of that as well,” Laura Bush said.

She insisted however, that there is a silver lining.

“This is the really good news about the United States of America, though. That is the pictures came to light. People will be prosecuted. Unlike under Saddam Hussein , where there were torture rooms and know one knew about them and didn’t come to light,” the US first lady said.
……………..

Remarks excerpted by Mrs. Laura Bush At the National Press Club – November 8, 2001

“The United States is now a “sadder and less innocent” nation …”

“We have felt sadness and anger and fear, yet out of those emotions have risen courage and hope.”

“I’ll say “I’m sad,” and they’ll nod and say they are sad too.”

“For over an hour I believed that it had been hit, and for the people there — people we worship with almost every weekend.”
……………………..