50 Funniest - The Onion

Now, I am a very big fan of The Onion. I have subscribed to the online video feeds as well as the articles for a long time, and have always gotten a kick out of their writing. Satire is perhaps my favorite kind of humor, as is shown by my adoration of “A Modest Proposal”.

There are many Onion stories over the years I have loved, but this perhaps might be the greatest one I’ve read.

“Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia” is very funny, particularly because it is incredibly true. My family is Ukrainian, so I am used to seeing many strange Eastern-European words, many of which are not particularly vowel-heavy. The article jokes that these words have been “horribly butchered by millions around the world,” which is something I can completely understand. Heck, even my last name “Kozura”, which is actually pretty well-stocked as well as vowels go, is butchered nearly every day. (For the record, its pronounced “COH-ZHUR-UH”, and means “potato farmer” for those who were about to ask.)

The Onion always fabricates really great quotes from its clever “sources,” such as Grg Hmphrs, whose dream in this article is to be “George Humpheries.”

A really dark (but surprisingly hilarious) part of this article is the sentences the article says that Bosnia can create with vowels: “The potatoes are ready,” “I believe it will rain,” and “All of my children are dead from the war.” These are all particularly funny (or not) because they are true. Bosnians live mostly off potatoes. They experience a very large amount of rain, in fact, it has the city with the largest amount of rain every year in Europe. And finally, many children fought young in the many wars Bosnia has been through.

The map that is included with the article, detailing Clinton’s plans to deploy the A’s near Sjlbvdnzv and send the I’s to Dvzk, is actually a really great touch that makes it even more hilarious.

This is actually the kind of touch that makes people who haven’t read The Onion before and are unaware that it’s satirical to believe the story. When this happens, they usually go into some kind of outrage over what (unbeknowingly satirical) topic the article is about. This is seen many times over the years where a person posts an Onion article on Facebook, and make a fool of themselves taking it seriously. They’ll post about how this article is “literally unbelievable,” which is why the phenomenon is now called Literally Unbelievable. There has even been a website created for just that purpose, http://literallyunbelievable.org/ which posts picture of people misunderstanding The Onion’s satire. It is one of my favorite websites ever.

One of the funniest things is that, when people don’t understand that The Onion is satire, they suddenly start labeling The Onion as “AN EXTREMELY LIBERAL BLOG” or “A RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN NEWSPAPER” depending on who is made to look bad in the article.

An example of a literally unbelievable post…

 

I particularly enjoy the “hologramed head” … I guess photoshop wasn’t good enough for this “republican publication.”

3 Things that made Comic Relief Bearable

So, I really, really was not a fan of Comic Relief. Overall I felt the author was often reaching and, honestly, pretentious.
However, there were a few parts of the book that made it worthwhile. Although there were many humorous examples I enjoyed, there were three key points I thought were important from the book.
1. Humor can be interpreted different ways. I felt as though this was a reoccurring theme in the book. Firstly, there are different definitions of humor. Secondly, people can interpret humor in different ways based on their background and life experiences. Thirdly, humor itself can be viewed through different theories. These theories can analyze why things are humorous to people. All of these reasons for different interpretations show that humor is actually a pretty complex aspect of society.
2. There are both good and bad sides to humor. Humor is often accompanied by laughter and good feelings. It also promotes good health. It can be a starting point for discussions about observations of society. However, humor can also be negative in the fact that it is "idle" and can result in irresponsible behavior (think Jackass movies). Humor can also be offensive, and can often times cause emotional harm rather than happiness.
3. Humor is often related to cognitive dissonance. Humor often can result from a cognitive shift, which is usually caused by an outcome one does not expect, or some kind of incongruence. This is almost always the case with wit and other forms of humor. These cognitive shifts result in higher thinking, one of the better aspects of humor.

First Meeting with WeiRan

Today I met with WeiRan for the first time. We agreed to meet over at union gronds, and class was canceed I headed over a little early, amused by the fact that someone had chosen to put Dr Phil on the television. I was watching some special about teens with attitudes when he arrived.
WeiRan is from China, about two and a half hours away from Shanghai, which he describes as "very close," and came to TCU at his father's request. It was interesting to learn from WeiRan that TCU is very well-known around China, and it is thought of as one of the best schools to attend for intensive English.
After he graduates the program, WeiRan hopes to attend TCU as an undergraduate student. Although he really enjoys business, his father wants him to take engineering. Listening to his story about his father expecting him to take over the family business and all the other expectations reminds me of how different our cultures can be.
Upon hearing about his future engineering degree, we talk about the engineering classes I have taken and we start going through my textbooks to show what we are studying. WeRan commented multiple times on how one subject or another was taught at his high school. In China, they push math and science much more than here, and he says he has already taken the subjects in my Differential Equations textbook and Physics III.
Overall, I learned a lot about WeiRan and a suprising amount about TCU and the Intensive English program as well. I'm excited to meet with him again next week and to discuss humor and the differences between here and China.

September 11 Ponderings and Sonnet #55

#55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme?

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

                                        So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

                                        You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

This is actually one of my favorite poems of all time, and I was very appreciative to go over it during our class. Shakespeare’s sonnet #55 is one of many he wrote to a “secret lover” of his, but this is one that has been one of his more popular ones. I’ve always loved this one, especially because it addressed that the written word can last longer than any monument. This is one reason I wanted to be a writer for the majority of my life. 

Reading this poem on September 11 was something new, though, I must say. The words of “gilded monuments”, “unswept stone”, “statues overturn”, and “war’s quick fire” immediately stand out to me, as clear as if they were bolded. Reading over this I revisit many memories.

Everyone remembers where they were when they found out about the attacks, just as those in the generations before ours will always remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. I was at school, I had been passing by a teacher’s classroom when her class was at “Specials rotation,” and she had CNN on on the television in the corner of her room. I could see all the smoke, but as I was just passing by, I didn’t find out until I got home what had really happened. Watching the towers fall on television, I was just a kid, and really didn’t understand what was going on or why.

My aunt worked in Pentagon, so naturally, my family was panicking when we couldn’t get a hold of her. She was safe, we found out soon, but many, many others were not. My mom cried a lot that night, and I remember everyone being scared for weeks.

I don’t have many other memories from that day, but I do remember going to New York just a few short months later. We visited ground zero, and although I was young, I remember it very vividly. It was almost 11pm, and the crews were still moving rubble, all these months later. Dust was hovering in the air, and the lights of the crews bounced off of it, creating a heavy, grey haze. I remember it being hard to breathe. I couldn’t imagine how badly those people had suffered.

I remember the September 11 of the next year pretty vividly too. I didn’t go to school that day, and I spoke to almost every one of my family members. It was a day for mourning, even if we had not lost anyone very close, but we wanted to support those that had. My mom and I prayed many times that day, wishing that everyone was doing well on a day with such terrible memories. 

In the years since, I’ve grown and gained a deeper understanding of what happened then and what has happened since. Looking back, it was a lot of ignorance and hate that led up to the attack. It was something I had hoped might dissipate by now, but as it seems, hate only seems to breed more hate, as I have witnessed firsthand towards my Muslim friends. I hope this is something that will be resolved within my lifetime. Every year on the eleventh of September, I am reminded the importance of tolerance and acceptance of other people.