Jokes Offensive Quotes

Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.

Right.” He slowly stood up. “This is new territory for you. Stupid sequestering, the Keepers better not have turned you into a nun or something.” I snatched a book off my nightstand and threw it at him. “Get out of my room!” He caught the book in midair and laid it on the bed. “Easy, Lily. That was a bad joke. I didn’t mean any offense.” I shook with humiliation. “You don’t know what it’s been like.” “I know, and I’m sorry.” He came to my side and cupped my face. “I’m sure it hasn’t been fun. You deserve better.” I nodded. He lowered his head, softly brushing his lips over mine. “I’ll show you how much fun it can be. You need to trust me.

When you’re given the gift of truth, you spend a lot of time trying to tone it down because it is already offensive enough.

The denizens of Feyland find the absence of magic to be quite funny. I mean no offense. ” “None taken.” “For example – In the Land Over the Crystal River (for that's how we refer to humans), there was once a man and a woman. And the man was in love with the woman, and wanted her for himself. But because he had no magic, he couldn't feel whether or not there was a “pull” towards her or not, so he didn't know whether she loved him or not. So what did he do?” “What?” “He had to ASK her!” Kian couldn't help laughing. “I don't get it!” “Ask her!” said Kian. “It's funny – because he didn't have magic.” His laughter grew louder and less controlled, tinkling like bells in the winter snow. “He had to ask her!” I realized that there were some cultural barriers Kian and I might never transcend.

Oh, offensive jokes…when, if ever, will your time come around again?

The word “holiday” comes from “holy day” and holy means “exalted and worthy of complete devotion.” By that definition, all days are holy. Life is holy. Atheists have joy every day of the year, every holy day. We have the wonder and glory of life. We have joy in the world before the lord is come. We’re not going for the promise of life after death; we’re celebrating life before death. The smiles of children. The screaming, the bitching, the horrific whining of one’s own children. The glory of giving or receiving a blow job. Sunsets, rock and roll, bebop, Jell-O, stinky cheese, and offensive jokes. For atheists, everything in the world is enough and every day is holy. Every day is an atheist holiday. It’s a day that we’re alive.

Trying to be offensive for the sole purpose of being offensive should always deem one the least offensive of offenders.

Why doesn't the law permit a man to marry a second woman? A: Because the law says you cannot be punished twice for the same offense.

But no one wants to listen to our sad stories unless they are smoothed over with a joke or nice melody. And even then, not always. No one wants to hear a woman talking or writing about pain in a way that suggests that it doesn't end. Without a pat solution, silver lining, or happy ending we're just complainers -- downers who don't realize how good we actually have it. Men's pain and existential angst are the stuff of myth and legends and narratives that shape everything we do, but women's pain is a backdrop- a plot development to push the story along for the real protagonists. Disrupting that story means we're needy or shellfish, or worst of all, man-haters - as if after all men have done to women over the ages the mere act of not liking them for it is most offensive.

There is no better way of defending yourself against unkind words than to treat them as a joke. I know someone personally who laughingly passed off such remarks as said in fun, and silenced his enemies with a witty rejoinder. They soon lost their bad temper and made light of what they had said in earnest. The humble know all these tactics, but the proud take offence at everything and are never at peace.

The most appalling racist, sexist, and perversely cruel remarks are served up on social media, often with a wink or a sneer, and when called out, practitioners frequently respond that they were simply joking—much the way that White House aides say Trump is simply joking or misunderstood when he makes offensive remarks. At a November 2016 alt-right conference, the white supremacist Richard Spencer ended his speech, shouting, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” When asked about the Nazi salutes that greeted his exclamation, Spencer replied that they were “clearly done in a spirit of irony and exuberance.

You made me laugh at your jokes. You made me cry at your criticism. You made me shout at your lies. Then I noticed how in every case someone else was present, hearing you without laughter or tears or anger. I alone reacted. I see now; you never made me laugh or cry or rage. I chose to find humor. I chose to take offense. I chose to feel scorned. The truth is, you never had power over me.

At that shameful stage in the development of our criticism, literary abuse would overstep all limits of decorum; literature itself was a totally extraneous matter in critical articles: they were pure invective, a vulgar battle of vulgar jokes, double-entendres, the most vicious calumnies and offensive constructions. It goes without saying, that in this inglorious battle, the only winners were those who had nothing to lose as far as their good name was concerned. My friends and I were totally deluded. We imagined ourselves engaged in the subtle philosophical disputes of the portico or the academy, or at least the drawing room. In actual fact we were slumming it.

Well. Um. The thing is…” I inhale, then continue with rapid-fire speed. “Imnotahockeyfan.” A wrinkle appears in his forehead. “What?” I repeat myself, slowly this time, with actual pauses between each word. “I’m not a hockey fan.” Then I hold my breath and await his reaction. He blinks. Blinks again. And again. His expression is a mixture of shock and horror. “You don’t like hockey?” I regretfully shake my head. “Not even a little bit?” Now I shrug. “I don’t mind it as background noise—” “Background noise?” “—but I won’t pay attention to it if it’s on.” I bite my lip. I’m already in this deep—might as well deliver the final blow. “I come from a football family.” “Football,” he says dully. “Yeah, my dad and I are huge Pats fans. And my grandfather was an offensive lineman for the Bears back in the day.” “Football.” He grabs his water and takes a deep swig, as if he needs to rehydrate after that bombshell. I smother a laugh. “I think it’s awesome that you’re so good at it, though. And congrats on the Frozen Four win.” Logan stares at me. “You couldn’t have told me this before I asked you out? What are we even doing here, Grace? I can never marry you now—it would be blasphemous.” His twitching lips make it clear that he’s joking, and the laughter I’ve been fighting spills over. “Hey, don’t go canceling the wedding just yet. The success rate for inter-sport marriages is a lot higher than you think. We could be a Pats-Bruins family.” I pause. “But no Celtics. I hate basketball.” “Well, at least we have that in common.” He shuffles closer and presses a kiss to my cheek. “It’s all right. We’ll work through this, gorgeous. Might need couples counseling at some point, but once I teach you to love hockey, it’ll be smooth sailing for us.” “You won’t succeed,” I warn him. “Ramona spent years trying to force me to like it. Didn’t work.” “She gave up too easily then. I, on the other hand, never give up

To not laugh at a king’s joke is a grave offense. That grave has your headstone on it. Everybody musters a chuckle at a royal punchline—even the humble duck farmer.

Can I cuddle up with you when you sleep?” Sma stopped, detached the creature from her shoulder with one hand and stared it in the face. “What?” “Just for chumminess’ sake,” the little thing said, yawning wide and blinking. “I’m not being rude; it’s a good bonding procedure.” Sma was aware of Skaffen-Amtiskaw glowing red just behind her. She brought the yellow and brown device closer to her face. “Listen, Xenophobe—” “Xeny.” “Xeny. You are a million-ton starship. A Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit. Even—” “But I’m demilitarized!” “Even without your principle armament, I bet you could waste planets if you wanted to—” “Aw, come on; any silly GCU can do that!” “So what’s all this shit for?” She shook the furry little remote drone, quite hard. Its teeth chattered. “It’s for a laugh!” it cried. “Sma, don’t you appreciate a joke?” “I don’t know. Do you appreciate being drop-kicked back to the accommodation area?” “Ooh! What’s your problem, lady? Have you got something against small furry animals, or what?” Look Ms. Sma, I know very well I’m a ship, and I do everything I’m asked to do—including taking you to this frankly rather fuzzily specified destination—and do it very efficiently, too. If there was the slightest sniff of any real action, and I had to start acting like a warship, this construct in your hands would go lifeless and limp immediately, and I’d battle as ferociously and decisively as I’ve been trained to. Meanwhile, like my human colleagues, I amuse myself harmlessly. If you really hate my current appearance, all right; I’ll change it; I’ll be an ordinary drone, or just a disembodied voice, or talk to you through Skaffen-Amtiskaw here, or through your personal terminal. The last thing I want is to offend a guest.” Sma pursed her lips. She patted the thing on its head and sighed. “Fair enough.” “I can keep this shape?” “By all means.” “Oh goody!” It squirmed with pleasure, then opened its big eyes wide and looked hopefully at her. “Cuddle?” “Cuddle.” Sma cuddled it, patted its back. She turned to see Skaffen-Amtiskaw lying dramatically on its back in midair, its aura field flashing the lurid orange that was used to signal Sick Drone in Extreme Distress.

I’m over here in my unit, isolated and alone, eating my terrible tasting food, and I have to look over at that. That looks like the most fun I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and it’s B.S. - excuse my language. I’m just saying that I wash and dry; I’m like a single mother. Look, we all know home-ec is a joke—no offense—it’s just that everyone takes this class to get an A, and it’s bullshit—and I’m sorry. I’m not putting down your profession, but it’s just the way I feel. I don’t want to sit here, all by myself, cooking this shitty food—no offense—and I just think that I don’t need to cook tiramisu. When am I gonna need to cook tiramisu? Am I going to be a chef? No. There’s three weeks left of school, give me a fuckin’ break! I’m sorry for cursing.

At one conference Hameroff told Dennett, publicly, "You know, Dan, maybe the reason you like this [mechanistic] idea is because you're a zombie. And maybe the reason I see things differently is because, I'm not." Hameroff told me he was half-joking. But Dennett took offense. "I wound up apologizing," says Hameroff. "I guess he only likes the idea of being a zombie if we're all zombies.

1)    The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2)    At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3)    He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4)    He is verbally abusive. 5)    He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6)    He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7)    He has battered in prior relationships. 8)    He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9)    He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10)   His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11)   There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12)   He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13)   He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14)   He refuses to accept rejection. 15)   He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16)   He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17)   He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18)   He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19)   He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship. 20)   He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21)   He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22)   He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23)   He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24)   He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25)   He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26)   He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27)   Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28)   He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29)   He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30)   His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children).

When Trump declared his candidacy for real in 2015, I thought it was another joke, like a lot of people did. By then, he’d remade himself from tabloid scoundrel into right-wing crank, with his long, offensive, quixotic obsession with President Obama’s birth certificate. He’d flirted with politics for decades, but it was hard to take him seriously. He reminded me of one of those old men ranting on about how the country was going to hell in a handbasket unless people started listening to him.

You probably don't come to visit as often as you should, and when you do come to visit, it is offensive to Auntie Tina how little you'll eat. All this seems like an Italian grandmother joke, but I assure you Tina Caramanico is quite serious. There are two ways to handle this overfeeding situation. You can yell at her to stop putting food on your plate, then feel guilty about yelling at an old woman. Or you can avoid conflict, eat quietly, and suffer only physically afterward. The first time I brought my husband to meet her, Auntie Tina told me admiringly, “He eats so nicely.” This is a thing Italian grandmothers say about men who don’t yell at them during dinner.

...No one wants to listen to our sad stories unless they are smoothed over with a joke or nice melody. And even then, not always. No one wants to hear a woman talking or writing about pain in a way that suggests that it doesn't end. Without a pat solution, silver lining, or happy ending we're just complainers--downers who don't realize how good we actually have it. Men's pain and existential angst are the stuff of myth and legends and narratives that shape everything we do, but women's pain is a backdrop--a plot development to push the story along for the real protagonists. Disrupting that story means we're needy or selfish, or worst of all, man-haters--as if after all men have done to women over the ages the mere act of not liking them for it is most offensive.

Before I leave the bathroom, I pinch my cheeks hard to bring blood to the surface of my skin. It’s stupid, but I don’t want to look weak and exhausted in front of everyone. When I walk back into Tobias’s room, Uriah is sprawled across the bed facedown; Christina is holding the blue sculpture above Tobias’s desk, examining it; and Lynn is poised above Uriah with a pillow, a wicked grin creeping across her face. Lynn smacks Uriah hard in the back of the head, Christina says, “Hey Tris!” and Uriah cries, “Ow! How on earth do you make a pillow hurt, Lynn?” “My exceptional strength,” she says. “Did you get smacked, Tris? One of your cheeks is bright red.” I must not have pinched the other one hard enough. “No, it’s just…my morning glow.” I try the joke out on my tongue like it’s a new language. Christina laughs, maybe a little harder than my comment warrants, but I appreciate the effort. Uriah bounces on the bed a few times when he moves to the edge. “So, the thing we’re all not talking about,” he says. He gestures to me. “You almost died, a sadistic pansycake saved you, and now we’re all waging some serious war with the factionless as allies.” “Pansycake?” says Christina. “Dauntless slang.” Lynn smirks. “Supposed to be a huge insult, only no one uses it anymore.” “Because it’s so offensive,” says Uriah, noddng. “No. Because it’s so stupid no Dauntless with any sense would speak it, let alone think it. Pansycake. What are you, twelve?” “And a half,” he says. I get the feeling their banter is for my benefit, so that I don’t have to say anything; I can just laugh. And I do, enough to warm the stone that has formed in my stomach. “There’s food downstairs,” says Christina. “Tobias made scrambled eggs, which, as it turns out, is a disgusting food.” “Hey,” I say. “I like scrambled eggs.” “Must be a Stiff breakfast, then.” She grabs my arm. “C’mon.

Before becoming Sam Goldwyn’s prized possession—and during a decade and more of taking roles that put him out there to be seen and perhaps noticed—Brennan did play characters who disparaged women. But what happened when he was offered the plum role of Jeeter Lester in John Ford’s production of Tobacco Road (March 7, 1941) is revealing. Erskine Caldwell’s best-selling novel had been a huge hit when it was adapted for the Broadway stage, and now the prestigious director was casting the film version with several actors—including Ward Bond, Gene Tierney, and Dana Andrews—whose careers would benefit from Ford’s attention. In Tobacco Road, Jeeter is the shiftless family patriarch. Not only does he lack ambition, his jokes, to Walter Brennan, seemed offensive. Ada, Jeeter’s wife, is demeaned just for laughs when he says she “never spoke a word to me for our first ten years we was married. Heh! Them was the happiest ten years of my life.

I'm going to get lecture-y for a second and add that I think the entire idea of tops and bottems, especially when coming from straight people who fetishize gay people, is an attempt to place some sort of hetero world over gay people. "Oh your're a bottom, so you're the woman." Gay guys who are strictly tops or bottoms tend to embrace this idea, too. Being a top only means you're "manly" or whatever because not being manly is considered bad by like adults and TV and stuff. Gay guys can buy into that crap just as easy as straight people. Whenever you see masc for masc on Grindr or whatever, what you're seeing is someone saying," I don't want people to think I'm like a woman, and I don;t want people to think that you're like a woman because people will think less of us." Sure people have preference but these ideas of masculine and feminine are kind of meaningless. I wear make-up. I think I'm pretty manly! We're all told this crap all the time, but you can reject it. Instead you're enforcing the idea that there is masculine and there is feminine, and that masculine is, for some unexplained reason, better. Finally, and this should probably be clear after the last bit, but you cant tell a top or a bottom or what a person's preferences are just by looking at him! Big, harry, muscled men love taking it up the ass. Trust me, I know. And slim, make-up wearing types, we love to f@$%. And in my case, get f@$%ed, too. Like I said, versatility is the best. So, in summary, it's wrong to assume all gay guys are having anal sex all the time. And it's ridiculous and offensive and stereotyping and hurtful to think that those who are penetrated are girly and those who penetrate are manly, something you've been doing. ... You're email is more like a mean joke you tell your friends, and I think that is because secretly you hate the way you're always being told what a girl should be like. And when you see a gay guy blurring the gender lines a little, like me, you're jealous of him. You want to put him in his place. You want to say, "he's not a man." Because if you can't blur those gender lines without being told you're gross or wrong, then you want to make sure that anyone who does cross those gender lines gets punished the way you would. But you shouldn't be punishing gay guys. You should be braking down the barriers that keep you from being who YOU want to be!

Don’t worry,” he said flippantly, taking her arm and starting to walk back toward the house. “I’m not going to make the ritualistic proposal that followed our last encounters. Marriage is out of the question. Among other things, I’m fresh out of large rubies and expensive furs this season.” Despite his joking tone, Elizabeth felt ill at how ugly those words sounded now, even though her reasons for saying them at the time had nothing to do with a desire for jewels or furs. You had to give him credit, she decided miserably, because he obviously took no offense at it. Evidently, in sophisticated flirtations, the rule was that no one took anything seriously. “Who’s the leading contender these days?” he asked in that same light tone as the cottage came into view. “There must be more than Belhaven and Marchman.” Elizabeth struggled valiantly to make the same transition from heated passion to flippancy that he seemed to find so easy. She wasn’t quite so successful, however, and her light tone was threaded with confusion. “In my uncle’s eyes, the leading contender is whoever has the most important title, followed by the most money.” “Of course,” he said dryly. “In which case it sounds as if Marchman may be the lucky man.” His utter lack of caring made Elizabeth’s heart squeeze in an awful, inexplicable way. Her chin lifted in self-defense. “Actually, I’m not in the market for a husband,” she informed him, trying to sound as indifferent and as amused as he. “I may have to marry someone if I can’t continue to outmaneuver my uncle, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d like to marry a much older man than I.” “Preferably a blind one,” he said sardonically, “who’ll not notice a little affair now and then?” “I meant,” she informed him with a dark glance, “that I want my freedom. Independence. And that is something a young husband isn’t likely to give me, while an elderly one might.” “Independence is all an old man will be able to give you,” Ian said blntly. “That’s quite enough,” she said. “I’m excessively tired of being forever pushed about by the men in my life. I’d like to care for Havenhurst and do as I wish to do.” “Marry an old man,” Ian interjected smoothly, “and you may be the last of the Camerons.” She looked at him blankly. “He won’t be able to give you children.” “Oh, that,” Elizabeth said, feeling a little defeated and nonplussed. “I haven’t been able to work that out yet.” “Let me know when you do,” Ian replied with biting sarcasm. “There’s a fortune to be made from a discovery like that one.

WE’RE GOOD AT WRONG SPOTTING If you’ve ever received feedback at work—or had an in-law—you are familiar with the many shapes and sizes of wrong: It’s 2 + 2 = 5 wrong: It is literally incorrect. I could not have been rude at that meeting because I was not at that meeting. And my name is not Mike. It’s different-planet wrong: Somewhere in the universe there may exist a carbon-based life form that would have taken offense at my e-mail, but here on Earth everyone knows it was a joke. It used to be right: Your critique of my marketing plan is based on how marketing worked when you were coming up. Before the Internet. And electricity. It’s right according to the wrong people: Some see me that way, but next time, talk to at least one person who is not on my Personal Enemies List. Your context is wrong: I do yell at my assistant. And he yells at me. That’s how our relationship works—key word being “works.” It’s right for you, but wrong for me: We have different body types. Armani suits flatter you. Hoodies flatter me. The feedback is right, but not right now: It’s true that I could lose a few pounds—which I will do as soon as the quintuplets are out of the house. Anyway, it’s unhelpful: Telling me to be a better mentor isn’t helping me to be a better mentor. What kind of mentor are you anyway? Why is wrong spotting so easy? Because there’s almost always something wrong—something the feedback giver is overlooking, shortchanging, or misunderstanding. About you, about the situation, about the constraints you’re under. And givers compound the problem by delivering feedback that is vague, making it easy for us to overlook, shortchange, and misunderstand what they are saying. But in the end, wrong spotting not only defeats wrong feedback, it defeats learning.

I heard the fear in the first music I ever knew, the music that pumped from boom boxes full of grand boast and bluster. The boys who stood out on Garrison and Liberty up on Park Heights loved this music because it told them, against all evidence and odds, that they were masters of their own lives, their own streets, and their own bodies. I saw it in the girls, in their loud laughter, in their gilded bamboo earrings that announced their names thrice over. And I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze, how they would cut you with their eyes and destroy you with their words for the sin of playing too much. “Keep my name out your mouth,” they would say. I would watch them after school, how they squared off like boxers, vaselined up, earrings off, Reeboks on, and leaped at each other. I felt the fear in the visits to my Nana’s home in Philadelphia. You never knew her. I barely knew her, but what I remember is her hard manner, her rough voice. And I knew that my father’s father was dead and that my uncle Oscar was dead and that my uncle David was dead and that each of these instances was unnatural. And I saw it in my own father, who loves you, who counsels you, who slipped me money to care for you. My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. Everyone had lost a child, somehow, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns. It was said that these lost girls were sweet as honey and would not hurt a fly. It was said that these lost boys had just received a GED and had begun to turn their lives around. And now they were gone, and their legacy was a great fear. Have they told you this story? When your grandmother was sixteen years old a young man knocked on her door. The young man was your Nana Jo’s boyfriend. No one else was home. Ma allowed this young man to sit and wait until your Nana Jo returned. But your great-grandmother got there first. She asked the young man to leave. Then she beat your grandmother terrifically, one last time, so that she might remember how easily she could lose her body. Ma never forgot. I remember her clutching my small hand tightly as we crossed the street. She would tell me that if I ever let go and were killed by an onrushing car, she would beat me back to life. When I was six, Ma and Dad took me to a local park. I slipped from their gaze and found a playground. Your grandparents spent anxious minutes looking for me. When they found me, Dad did what every parent I knew would have done—he reached for his belt. I remember watching him in a kind of daze, awed at the distance between punishment and offense. Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. What I know is that fathers who slammed their teenage boys for sass would then release them to streets where their boys employed, and were subject to, the same justice. And I knew mothers who belted their girls, but the belt could not save these girls from drug dealers twice their age. We, the children, employed our darkest humor to cope. We stood in the alley where we shot basketballs through hollowed crates and cracked jokes on the boy whose mother wore him out with a beating in front of his entire fifth-grade class. We sat on the number five bus, headed downtown, laughing at some girl whose mother was known to reach for anything—cable wires, extension cords, pots, pans. We were laughing, but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge.

I’ve worn Niki’s pants for two days now. I thought a third day in the same clothes might be pushing it.” Ian shrugged with indifference. “It might send Derian through the roof, but it doesn’t bother me. Wear what you want to wear.” Eena wrinkled her nose at him. “Do you really feel that way or are you trying to appear more laissez-faire than Derian?” “More laissez-faire?” “Yes. That’s a real word.” “Two words actually,” he grinned. “Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" He coated the words with a heavy French accent. Eena gawked at him. “Since when do you speak French?” “I don’t.” Ian chuckled. “But I did do some research in world history the year I followed you around on Earth. Physics was a joke, but history—that I found fascinating.” Slapping a hand against her chest, Eena exclaimed, “I can’t believe it! Unbeknownst to me, Ian actually studied something in high school other than the library’s collection of sci-fi paperbacks!” He grimaced at her exaggerated performance before defending his preferred choice of reading material. “Hey, popular literature is a valuable and enlightening form of world history. You would know that if you read a book or two.” She ignored his reproach and asked with curiosity, “What exactly did you say?” “In French?” “Duh, yes.” “Don’t ‘duh’ me, you could easily have been referring to my remark about enlightening literature. I know the value of a good book is hard for you to comprehend.” He grinned crookedly at her look of offense and then moved into an English translation of his French quote. “Let it do and let it pass, the world goes on by itself.” “Hmm. And where did that saying come from?” Ian delivered his answer with a surprisingly straight face. “That is what the French Monarch said when his queen began dressing casually. The French revolution started one week following that famous declaration, right after the queen was beheaded by the rest of the aristocracy in her favorite pair of scroungy jeans.” “You are such a brazen-tongued liar!

Profane, vulgar, or crude language and inappropriate or off-color jokes are offensive to the Lord. Never misuse the name of God or Jesus Christ.

Yes, Fraulein,' he said to Hannah. 'How gauche of you to have been born in another county. It is almost a capital offense. Here in this house we believe that one must be severely punished for the happenstance of one's birth.' His face was a jester's mask of mockery, but there was a tightness about his eyes, a tense set to his smile. 'What a dilemma for the English, though- we agree with Germany on so many things, including the patent inferiority of anyone who is not US. Darling Mum, did it ever occur to you that to the rest of the world, WE are foreigners?' 'The very idea!' Lady Liripip said with a nervous titter.

Q: Why doesn't the law permit a man to marry a second woman? A: Because the law says you cannot be punished twice for the same offense.

The days that followed were what Matthew would remember for the rest of his life as a week of unholy torture. He had been to hell and back at a much earlier time in his life, having known physical pain, deprivation, near-starvation, and bone-chilling fear. But none of those discomforts came close to the agony of standing by and watching Daisy Bowman being courted by Lord Llandrindon. It seemed the seeds he had sown in Llandrindon’s mind about Daisy’s charms had successfully taken root. Llandrindon was at Daisy’s side constantly, chatting, flirting, letting his gaze travel over her with offensive familiarity. And Daisy was similarly absorbed, hanging on his every word, dropping whatever she happened to be doing as soon as Llandrindon appeared. On Monday they went out for a private picnic. On Tuesday they went for a carriage drive. On Wednesday they went to pick bluebells. On Thursday they fished at the lake, returning with damp clothes and sun-glazed complexions, laughing together at a joke they didn’t share with anyone else. On Friday they danced together at an impromptu musical evening, looking so well matched that one of the guests remarked it was a pleasure to watch them. On Saturday Matthew woke up wanting to murder someone.

Q: Why doesn't the law permit a man to marry a second woman? A: Because the law says you cannot be punished twice for the same offense. ***

You could have left me where you found me.” That offended him, to judge by his stiffened posture. “Are you joking? Who would be so heartless as to do that?” “An unkind man,” she countered, tightening her arms around him as the horse sidestepped a long patch of ice. “So that logically implies that you are the opposite: a kind man.” He actually laughed at that, his momentary offense gone. “A tidy argument, Miss Hartridge. Is your father a barrister, by chance?

This made her a quick pupil for anyone who had the nerve to tell her something really filthy or offensive. That was a double thrill for her—she could be shocked and amused at the same time. Smut was a surefire way of getting her to laugh. It would not be a natural, convivial sound, however, but a great, honking, nasal guffaw. The more offensive the joke, the more unattractive would be her reaction. She also enjoyed the shock she could achieve by repeating the worst from her collection. Needless to say, we did not plumb quite those depths on the first day. It took a week at least.

When Saddam Hussein was found guilty he was originally sentenced to be shot. His last request was to name his own firing squad: He chose Lampard, Gerrard and Carragher from 12 yards.

All rational beings laugh--and maybe only rational beings laugh. And all rational beings benefit from laughing. As a result there has emerged a peculiar human institution--that of the joke, the repeatable performance in words or gestures that is designed as an object of laughter. Now there is a great difficulty in saying exactly what laughter is. It is not just a sound--not even a sound, since it can be silent. Nor is it just a thought, like the thought of some object as incongruous. It is a response to something, which also involves a judgment of that thing. Moreover, it is not an individual peculiarity, like a nervous tic or a sneeze. Laughter is an expression of amusement, and amusement is an outwardly directly, socially pregnant state of mind. Laughter begins as a collective condition, as when children giggle together over some absurdity. And in adulthood amusements remains one of the ways in which human beings enjoy each other's company, become reconciled to their differences, and accept their common lot. Laughter helps us to overcome out isolation and fortifies us against despair. That does not mean that laughter is subjective in the sense that 'anything goes,' or that it is uncritical of its object. On the contrary, jokes are the object of fierce disputes, and many are dismissed as 'not funny,' 'in bad taste,' 'offensive,' and so on. The habit of laughing at things is not detachable from the habit of judging things to be worthy of laughter. Indeed, amusement, although a spontaneous outflow of social emotion, is also the most frequently practiced form of judgment. To laugh at something is already to judge it.

When my wife asked me if I was high, I just laughed. Uncontrollably. For fifteen minutes.

It's all fun and games until you realise Casper the Ghost is actually a dead child.

Some kid was playing up and being a right twat in Tesco, so his dad gave him a smack. This German woman came over, tapped the dad on the shoulder and said, “In my country we don't smack our children.” He replied, “Well, in our country we don't gas our Jews.

So, I tried the same thing in our local Chinese restaurant. I squinted my eyes and shouted, “Harro! Spesha frah raice, prease!” But, instead of showing appreciation, they took the upturned prawn-cracker basket from my head and told me to get out.

I failed my Politics exam. The question was: “Describe the role that India plays in the modern world.” Apparently “Tech Support” is not the correct answer.

Virgin mobile. What's the definition of innocence? A nun working in a condom factory, thinking she's making sleeping bags for mice.

What do you call a disabled paedophile? A creepy crawly.

My girlfriend only gives me a blowjob if I wear a condom. That's like taking a shit with your boxers on.

I went into a brothel and said, “How much for anal?” She said, “Sixty quid.” I said, “Ah, that's a bit expensive. I think I'll leave it.” She said, “Tight arse.” I said, “Oh, go on then.

I was shagging the wife last night and, after coming for the second time, I rolled over. My wife was not impressed and said, “How about finishing me off now?” So I smothered her with my pillow.

I was in the pub with my girlfriend last night when she said, “Can I ask you a question?” “Sure, babe,” I replied, stroking her hair. “What is it?” She said, “Why are you with me?” I said, “Because I love you.” She said, “I know, but this is the ladies toilets and I'm trying to have a shit.

I don't like being called a racist. I prefer ethnic critic.

Fuck that, it'll take ages. I'll just use a towel. I took a vase to get valued on the Antiques Roadshow and they told me it was 'absolutely priceless'. Well, I got four quid for it at a car boot sale last weekend. Who's laughing now?

The President of Oz Presidents Trump, Clinton, and Obama are flying together on Air Force On when they are caught in a tornado, and off they spin to OZ. After great difficulty, they finally make it down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and come before the Great Wizard. "WHAT BRINGS YOU BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL WIZARD OF OZ? WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Barack Obama steps forward timidly, "My foreign policy was pretty bad. I had a terrible time getting bullied by Iran and Syria and Russia and Libya, so I've come for some courage." "NO PROBLEM!" says the Wizard, "WHO IS NEXT?" Donald Trump steps forward, "Well, this job is harder than I thought. I... I think I need a brain. A yuge brain!” "DONE" says the Wizard. "WHO COMES NEXT BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ?" Then there is a great silence in the hall. Bill Clinton is just standing there, looking around, but doesn't say a word. Irritated, the Wizard finally asks, "WHAT BRINGS YOU TO THE EMERALD CITY?" Bill replies, "Is Dorothy around?

The President of Oz Presidents Trump, Clinton, and Obama are flying together on Air Force On when they are caught in a tornado, and off they spin to OZ. After great difficulty, they finally make it down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and come before the Great Wizard. "WHAT BRINGS YOU BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL WIZARD OF OZ? WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Barack Obama steps forward timidly, "My foreign policy was pretty bad. I had a terrible time getting bullied by Iran and Syria and Russia and Libya, so I've come for some courage." "NO PROBLEM!" says the Wizard, "WHO IS NEXT?" Donald Trump steps forward, "Well, this job is harder than I thought. I... I think I need a brain. A yuge brain!” "DONE" says the Wizard. "WHO COMES NEXT BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ?" Then there is a great silence in the hall. Bill Clinton is just standing there, looking around, but doesn't say a word. Irritated, the Wizard finally asks, "WHAT BRINGS YOU TO THE EMERALD CITY?" Bill replies, "Is Dorothy around?" Politics A little boy goes to his father and asks, "Dad, what is politics?" The dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me capitalism. Your mother, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the people.” The boy nodded. His father continued, “The nanny, we'll consider her the working class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense." The little boy nodded again, and went off to bed thinking about what dad had said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has soiled his diaper. The little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now." The father says, "Good son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about." The little boy replies, "Well, while capitalism is screwing the working class, the government is sound asleep, the people are being ignored, and the future is in deep shit.

Psst! Hey kid! What does Father O'Malley give for a blow job?" Timmy smiles and answers, "Usually a Big Mac and a chocolate shake.

Traveler’s Disease A businessman returns from a long trip to Asia. After a few days, he notices strange growth on his penis. He sees several doctors, but they all give him the same terrifying prognosis. They all say: "You've been screwing around in the Far East, and this disease is very common there, but there’s no cure. We'll have to cut it off." The man panics, but figures if it is common in the East they must know how to cure it. So he goes back and sees a doctor in Thailand. The Thai doctor examines his penis closely and says, "You've been fooling around in my country. This is a very common problem here. Did you see any other doctors?" The man replies, "Yes, I saw several in the USA." The doctor says, "I bet they told you it had to be cut off." The man answers, "Yes!” The Thai doctor smiles, nods, "That’s totally wrong.” “Oh, thank God!” the man replied. The doctor continued, “Yes, it will fall off by itself.

The Mother-in-Law I was walking with my wife and we came across her mother being beaten up by six guys. My wife cried, “Aren't you going to help?” I said, “Nah, six should be enough.

The Nursing Home There was an old man in a nursing home who had felt lonely since his wife had passed, and everyday he would sit at the same bench and stare at the trees in the yard. And elderly woman walked up to him one day and began to talk to him. She heard his story and was saddened by it, and asked if there was anything she could do to cheer him up. "Actually," the old man said, "you could hold my penis." At first the lady thought this was strange, but she figured since she wasn’t doing anything bad, just holding his penis. No harm done. Day after day, she’d meet the guy and hold his penis and they would talk for hours on end. She began to enjoy the time and thought nothing about the penis holding. One day she went to the spot to find that the man was not there. For the next week she didn’t see her friend at the bench and began to worry. She found a nurse and asked, "Did he pass away?" The woman held her breath, afraid of the answer. But the nurse responded, "Oh, no! He's been by the pool everyday for about a week now." The elderly lady didn't quite understand why, but she walked over to the pool to find him. When she got there, she saw him sitting next to the pool with another woman holding his penis! The woman was irate. "What's this?" she yelled at him. "Was my company not good enough for you? What does this woman have that I don't?" The man looked up with a smile and said, "Parkinson’s.

Ducks and Skunks A baby duck and a baby skunk raced across the highway, dodging cars and narrowly escaping death. Their families, however, were all killed by a truck barreling down the highway. Upon reaching the other side, the little duck tells the baby skunk, "My parents both died and didn't tell me what I am." "Well," says the baby skunk, "You are yellow and you have a bill and webbed feet. You must be a duck." The duck thanked him. The baby skunk then tells the duck, "My parents didn't tell me what I am, either." "Well," says the baby duck, "You're not quite black and you're not quite white and you smell bad. You must be Mexican.

THE PARENTS HAD been close in college but hadn’t gotten together as a group since then. Until they picked this season for their offensively long reunion. One had been heard to say: “Our last hurrah.” It sounded like bad acting in a stupid play. Another one non-joked, “After this, we’ll see each other next at someone’s funeral.” None of them cracked a smile.

WHITE SOLIDARITY White solidarity is the unspoken agreement among whites to protect white advantage and not cause another white person to feel racial discomfort by confronting them when they say or do something racially problematic. Educational researcher Christine Sleeter describes this solidarity as white “racial bonding.” She observes that when whites interact, they affirm “a common stance on race-related issues, legitimating particular interpretations of groups of color, and drawing conspiratorial we-they boundaries.”10 White solidarity requires both silence about anything that exposes the advantages of the white position and tacit agreement to remain racially united in the protection of white supremacy. To break white solidarity is to break rank. We see white solidarity at the dinner table, at parties, and in work settings. Many of us can relate to the big family dinner at which Uncle Bob says something racially offensive. Everyone cringes but no one challenges him because nobody wants to ruin the dinner. Or the party where someone tells a racist joke but we keep silent because we don’t want to be accused of being too politically correct and be told to lighten up. In the workplace, we avoid naming racism for the same reasons, in addition to wanting to be seen as a team player and to avoid anything that may jeopardize our career advancement. All these familiar scenarios are examples of white solidarity. (Why speaking up about racism would ruin the ambiance or threaten our career advancement is something we might want to talk about.) The very real consequences of breaking white solidarity play a fundamental role in maintaining white supremacy. We do indeed risk censure and other penalties from our fellow whites. We might be accused of being politically correct or might be perceived as angry, humorless, combative, and not suited to go far in an organization. In my own life, these penalties have worked as a form of social coercion. Seeking to avoid conflict and wanting to be liked, I have chosen silence all too often. Conversely, when I kept quiet about racism, I was rewarded with social capital such as being seen as fun, cooperative, and a team player. Notice that within a white supremacist society, I am rewarded for not interrupting racism and punished in a range of ways—big and small—when I do. I can justify my silence by telling myself that at least I am not the one who made the joke and that therefore I am not at fault. But my silence is not benign because it protects and maintains the racial hierarchy and my place within it. Each uninterrupted joke furthers the circulation of racism through the culture, and the ability for the joke to circulate depends on my complicity. People of color certainly experience white solidarity as a form of racism, wherein we fail to hold each other accountable, to challenge racism when we see it, or to support people of color in the struggle for racial justice.

Now, if the bedroom is dirty to you, then you are a true atheist, because if you have any of the mores, superstitions, if anyone in this audience believes that God made his body, and you body is dirty, the fault lies with the manufacturer. It's that cold, Jim, yeah.

I want to help you if you have a dirty-word problem. There are none, and I'll spell it out logically to you. Here is a toilet. Specifically-that's all we're concerned with, specifics-if I can tell you a dirty toilet joke, we must have a dirty toilet. That's what we're all talking about, a toilet. If we take this toilet and boil it and it's clean, I can never tell you specifically a dirty toilet joke about this toilet. I can tell you a dirty toilet joke in the Milner Hotel, or something like that, but this toilet is a clean toilet now. Obscenity is a human manifestation. This toilet has no central nervous system, no level of consciousness. It is not aware; it is a dumb toilet; it cannot be obscene; it's impossible. If it could be obscene, it could be cranky, it could be a Communist toilet, a traitorous toilet. It can do none of these things. This is a dirty toilet here. Nobody can offend you by telling a dirty toilet story. They can offend you because it's trite; you've heard it many, many times.

Comedy to me has always seemed a social tightrope for the comedian. For all axioms intellectually sound the general public would prefer to be amused, but in those emotionally sound, it then chooses to get offended.

In the broadest sense, there are at least two ways to use the danger of norms for comedic effect. The first is to feint across the norm boundary, but then retreat back to safety without actually violating it. The second way is to step across the boundary, violating the norm, and then to realize, like a child jumping into snow for the first time, “It’s safe over here! Wheee!” Here, for example, is a joke that flirts with, but doesn’t actually consummate, a norm violation: MARY: What do you call a black man flying a plane? JOHN: Uh . . . I don’t know… . MARY: A pilot. What did you think, you racist?! The humor here plays off the norm against racism. After Mary’s setup, John starts to squirm uncomfortably, afraid his friend is about to tell an offensive joke. But when Mary delivers the punchline, it’s sweet, safe relief. She wasn’t telling a racist joke after all. She was just playing! And a hearty chuckle ensues.42

We see white solidarity at the dinner table, at parties, and in work settings. Many of us can relate to the big family dinner at which Uncle Bob says something racially offensive. Everyone cringes but no one challenges him because nobody wants to ruin the dinner. Or the party where someone tells a racist joke but we keep silent because we don’t want to be accused of being too politically correct and be told to lighten up. In the workplace, we avoid naming racism for the same reasons, in addition to wanting to be seen as a team player and to avoid anything that may jeopardize our career advancement. All these familiar scenarios are examples of white solidarity. (Why speaking up about racism would ruin the ambiance or threaten our career advancement is something we might want to talk about.)

This old joke had run the full course from provocation > slightly offensive but funny > actually offensive from overuse > permissible > endearing relic of relationship past. Was resorting to old inside jokes a good thing?

Don’t be a complainer, and always think before you speak. Stay away from gossip, offensive language, or off-color jokes.

Nothing to do with black markets, or blackface, or how the French, in a really wonderful turn of phrase, call ghostwriters nègres—niggers!—the sheer bravado of it taking your breath away when you heard it for the first time. But why take offense over a playful use of words, when it really was the case that ghostwriters were just slaves, minus the whipping, raping, lynching, lifetime servitude, and free labor? Still—what the hell?—if words are just words, then let’s call it a white comedy, shall we? It’s just a joke, take it easy, a bad joke, sure, but so was the Unholy Trinity of colonialism, slavery, and genocide, not to mention the Dynamic Duo of capitalism and communism, both of which white people invented and which were contagious, like smallpox and syphilis.

the band was disgusting but not offensive. This was probably because their grotesquerie was at once so inward-looking and yet universal—everyone appreciates a good doody joke.

And then there are people – and these don’t unsettle but enrage me – who think comedy is trivial. They believe that serious, intelligent people should focus on worthy, momentous things and that jokes, levity, piss-taking, subverting and satirising are the pastimes of the second-rate. Words cannot express how second-rate I consider such people. In my experience the properly intelligent, whether they’re astrophysicists, politicians, poets, lawyers, entrepreneurs, comedians, taxi drivers, plumbers or doctors, however serious or trivial their career aims, all adore jokes. And they have that in common with a lot of idiots. For as long as I can remember, I have always thought that being funny is the cleverest thing you can do, that taking the piss out of something – parodying it, puncturing it – is at least as clever as making that thing in the first place. This view, which, I’m happy to say, will be most offensive to the people I want most to offend, was probably formed watching my cold grandfather, with all his financial acumen and preference for fish over humans, cry with laughter at a van being repeatedly driven into a swimming pool.

After my wife died, I couldn't even look at another woman for 10 years. But now that I'm out of jail, I can honestly say it was worth it!

Of all the insults and jokes that Barbara observed, very few seemed to overstep people’s boundaries. Some people were never teased about their weight, for example. Barbara noticed that “fat jokes” were leveled only at people who made the same joke about either themselves or others. The backslapping, laughter, and smiles that went with these jokes meant that they didn’t appear to cause offense. In order to come off well, jocular abuse either has to stay within the boundaries that people set for themselves by making their own self-deprecating jokes first, or it has to be so outrageous that it can’t possibly be meant seriously. Barbara had expected that jibes about race, sex, and all the other modern taboos that come under the umbrella of political correctness would be treated with extreme caution but instead the insults were raucous, risqué, and reciprocal. There’s an odd effect at play with some of these racial insults—at least in theory. Research conducted in the 1970s suggests that the more outrageous the insult the more intuitively it is construed as a joke, whereas milder insults are more likely to be heard as “meant.

Every time I see some Internet moron confidently declare that a joke was “offensive” and “not funny”—and that the fact that it was just a joke does not matter—I want to punch a wall. Sometimes I even want to do something more destructive, like reply and involve myself in an Internet argument with idiots, or worse, columnists for Mother Jones.

EUTRAPELIA. Clean mirth, a jest without a jeer, laughter without scorn, wit without malice, a joke without offense to one’s neighbor. A word fashioned from the Greek by Anselm Kroll, a minister from La Crosse, Wisconsin. He tried valiantly to get others to adopt the concept in a crusade that pushed for the dawning of a new day of humor without barbs. “What a lovely world it will be when its clever folk cease to strive to be satirical or sarcastic, and resolve to be eutrapeleous.

Elias watched him silently for a few heartbeats before he said, “I thought it was a joke, you know. You and Daniel Nieto.” He shook his head. “But I forgot that when you fuck up, you really fuck up.” That was true, so Stavros didn’t bother taking offense. He simply shrugged. “He kidnapped and tortured me. I had no choice but to fuck him.” “We would all be safer if that was all you did, but you made him love you.” Elias’ inhale was sharp. “Worse than that, you love him.

Learn Chinese in 5 Minutes  1) That’s not right = Sum Ting Wong  2) Are you harbouring a fugitive = Hu Yu Hai Ding  3) See me ASAP = Kum Hia  4) Stupid Man = Dum Fuk  5) Small Horse = Tai Ni Po Ni  6) Did you go to the beach = Wai Yu So Tan  7) I bumped the coffee table = Ai Bang Mai Fa Kin Ni  8) I think you need a face lift = Chin Tu Fat  9) It’s Very dark in here = Wai So Dim  10) I Thought you were on a diet = Wai Yu Mun Ching  11) This is a tow away zone = No Pah King  12) Our meeting is scheduled for next week = Wai Yu Kum Nao  13) Staying out of sight = Lei Ying Lo  14) He’s cleaning his automobile = Wa Shing Ka  15) Your body odor is offensive = Yu Stin Ki Pu  16) Great = Fa Kin Su Pah

What do you call a teacher who doesn’t fart in public? A: A private tootor.

I’m glad you showed restraint,” I say. He looks up, eager to take offense but not sure if there’s an angle to. “Ears. You could have chosen pricks.” “Thought about it. Gender biased and too heavy. Golds, you know.” He’s not joking. “Once I got into an armory and got my hands on antipersonnel mines, it started getting real fun. Best one was pulling a fire alarm in the mess and seeing all those Grays run out. Got fifty-one that day.

All people have insecurities, and often the best way to deceive a sucker is to play upon his insecurities. But in the realm of power, everything is a question of degree, and the person who is decidedly more insecure than the average mortal presents great dangers. Be warned: If you practice deception or trickery of any sort, study your mark well. Some people’s insecurity and ego fragility cannot tolerate the slightest offense. To see if you are dealing with such a type, test them first—make, say, a mild joke at their expense. A confident person will laugh; an overly insecure one will react as if personally insulted. If you suspect you are dealing with this type, find another victim.

I wish I could say that my life is a joke, but I can’t because jokes have a meaning.

George Mumford, a Newton-based mindfulness teacher, one such moment took place in 1993, at the Omega Institute, a holistic learning center in Rhinebeck, New York. The center was hosting a retreat devoted to mindfulness meditation, the clear-your-head habit in which participants sit quietly and focus on their breathing. Leading the session: meditation megastar Jon Kabat-Zinn. Originally trained as a molecular biologist at MIT, Kabat-Zinn had gone on to revolutionize the meditation world in the 1970s by creating a more secularized version of the practice, one focused less on Buddhism and more on stress reduction and other health benefits. After dinner one night, Kabat-Zinn was giving a talk about his work, clicking through a slide show to give the audience something to look at. At one point he displayed a slide of Mumford. Mumford had been a star high school basketball player who’d subsequently hit hard times as a heroin addict, Kabat-Zinn explained. By the early 1980s, however, he’d embraced meditation and gotten sober. Now Mumford taught meditation to prison inmates and other unlikely students. Kabat-Zinn explained how they were able to relate to Mumford because of his tough upbringing, his openness about his addiction — and because, like many inmates, he’s African-American. Kabat-Zinn’s description of Mumford didn’t seem to affect most Omega visitors, but one participant immediately took notice: June Jackson, whose husband had just coached the Chicago Bulls to their third consecutive NBA championship. Phil Jackson had spent years studying Buddhism and Native American spirituality and was a devoted meditator. Yet his efforts to get Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and their teammates to embrace mindfulness was meeting with only limited success. “June took one look at George and said, ‘He could totally connect with Phil’s players,’ ’’ Kabat-Zinn recalls. So he provided an introduction. Soon Mumford was in Chicago, gathering some of the world’s most famous athletes in a darkened room and telling them to focus on their breathing. Mumford spent the next five years working with the Bulls, frequently sitting behind the bench, as they won three more championships. In 1999 Mumford followed Phil Jackson to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he helped turn Kobe Bryant into an outspoken adherent of meditation. Last year, as Jackson began rebuilding the moribund New York Knicks as president, Mumford signed on for a third tour of duty. He won’t speak about the specific work he’s doing in New York, but it surely involves helping a new team adjust to Jackson’s sensibilities, his controversial triangle offense, and the particular stress that comes with compiling the worst record in the NBA. Late one April afternoon just as the NBA playoffs are beginning, Mumford is sitting at a table in O’Hara’s, a Newton pub. Sober for more than 30 years, he sips Perrier. It’s Marathon Monday, and as police begin allowing traffic back onto Commonwealth Avenue, early finishers surround us, un-showered and drinking beer. No one recognizes Mumford, but that’s hardly unusual. While most NBA fans are aware that Jackson is serious about meditation — his nickname is the Zen Master — few outside his locker rooms can name the consultant he employs. And Mumford hasn’t done much to change that. He has no office and does no marketing, and his recently launched website, mindfulathlete.org, is mired deep in search-engine results. Mumford has worked with teams that have won six championships, but, one friend jokes, he remains the world’s most famous completely unknown meditation teacher. That may soon change. This month, Mumford published his first book, The Mindful Athlete, which is part memoir and part instruction guide, and he has agreed to give a series of talks and book signings

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. The conversation moved swiftly to the latest edition of “Have I Got News for You.” “Oh, Mummy, it was hilarious,” laughed William. “They had a photo of Mrs. Parker Bowles and a horse’s head and asked what the difference was. The answer was that there isn’t any!” Diana absolutely exploded with laughter. We talked about which was the hottest photo to get. “Charles and Camilla is still the really big one,” I said, “followed by you and a new man, and now, of course, William with his first girlfriend.” He groaned. So did Diana. Our “big ones” are the most intimate parts of their personal lives. It was a weird moment. I am the enemy, really, but we were getting on well and sort of developing a better understanding of each other as we went along. Lunch was turning out to be basically a series of front-page exclusive stories--none of which I was allowed to publish, although I did joke that “I would save it for my book”--a statement that caused Diana to fix me with a stare, and demand to know if I was carrying a tape recorder. “No,” I replied, truthfully. “Are you?” We both laughed, neither quite knowing what the answer really was. The lunch was one of the most exhilarating, fascinating, and exasperating two hours of my life. I was allowed to ask Diana literally anything I liked, which surprised me, given William’s presence. But he was clearly in the loop on most of her bizarre world and, in particular, the various men who came into it from time to time. The News of the World had, during my editorship, broken the Will Carling, Oliver Hoare, and James Hewitt scoops, so I had a special interest in those. So, unsurprisingly, did Diana. She was still raging about Julia Carling: “She’s milking it for all she’s worth, that woman. Honestly. I haven’t seen Will since June ’95. He’s not the man in black you lot keep going on about. I’m not saying who that is, and you will never guess, but it’s not Will.” William interjected: “I keep a photo of Julia Carling on my dartboard at Eton.” That was torture. That was three fantastic scoops in thirty seconds. Diana urged me to tell William the story of what we did to Hewitt in the Mirror after he spilled the beans in the ghastly Anna Pasternak book. I dutifully recounted how we hired a white horse, dressed a Mirror reporter in full armor, and charged Hewitt’s home to confront him on allegations of treason with regard to his sleeping with the wife of a future king--an offense still punishable by death. Diana exploded again. “It was hysterical. I have never laughed so much.” She clearly had no time for Hewitt, despite her “I adored him” TV confessional.

To many a practicing geologist or epidemiologist, the claim that the very simple computational models developed in the following chapters have anything to do with real earthquakes or real epidemics may well be deemed professionally offensive, or at best dismissed as an infantile nerdy joke.

Why didn’t you say that you were coming?” She was trying not to stare at him, but she couldn’t help it. The angle of his cheekbones reminded her of one of the Greek statues from Dubois’s salon. His skin was sculpture-worthy as well, creamy and alabaster pale, just the hint of a blond beard showing on his cheeks and chin. Almost nothing about him reminded her of the petulant boy who had demanded a kiss from her three years ago. Luca gave Cass a funny look. He plucked a series of invisible cat hairs from his black velvet breeches. “I’m sure I mentioned it in at least two letters. Did you not receive them?” Cass reddened again. Her tongue felt knotted in her mouth. “I must have lost track of time.” Santo cielo. He was going to think she’d become a babbling idiot. Luca’s smile wavered for a moment. He stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankles. “No matter. I’m here now. Just in time to protect you.” Cass gestured toward Slipper, who had gone back to sleep on her lap. “Well, as you can see, I’m in grave danger of being mauled, right here in my aunt’s library.” She regretted the wry tone immediately. It was the kind of thing she would have said to Falco. Luca would probably take offense at her joke. But he laughed. “He does look rather fierce,” he said.

Far more important was the arrival of Phil Harris on the first show of the new year, Oct. 4, 1936. Harris was the fourth cog in the Benny formula, a swaggering blowhard whose demeanor might have been, in real life, as offensive as Benny’s, but on the air was touched with the Benny magic, making him one of the show’s most popular personalities. Harris drubbed Benny about being vain and cheap, but he shared the vanity and added a layer of riotous stupidity. He butchered English: he couldn’t spell the simplest words; he didn’t know Mongolia from Minneapolis. In reality, Harris was a comic genius whose sense of timing and showmanship was as fine-tuned as Benny’s. His greeting, “Hiya, Jackson,” brought the audience to ripples of laughter before the first jokes were said.

The paradox of wokeism is that, in its quest for inclusivity, it often becomes exclusionary, shutting down conversations deemed uncomfortable or offensive. This narrowing of acceptable discourse harms the essence of free speech, as it places arbitrary boundaries on what can be said or joked about. Comedy, in particular, serves as a barometer for societal norms and challenges our preconceptions. Suppressing comedic expression not only hampers artistic freedom but also stifles the very laughter that can bridge divides and foster understanding.

She’s cycled through more friends than most people ever have in a lifetime. Everyone loves her at first, and some of them still love her after she’s dropped them. They can never figure out what they did wrong. My mom can take offense at anything. Someone just looks at her the wrong way or doesn’t laugh at her jokes the way she wants them to, and she’s so done with them.

Truth is anti-fragile. It is not brittle. It does not shatter into a million pieces because of an -offensive and hurtful- joke. An individual with a strong personhood can laugh at others (in a playful manner) and laugh at himself. Humor is a test of anti-fragility and non-brittleness in a person and in a society. A society that can’t laugh at others and at itself in a good-humored way is on its way out.