Offended Jokes Quotes

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb - and I'm not blonde either.

And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type up your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee and bagels and Danish and go to Florent and drink coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the tv programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse your and sit on the steps smoking till your neighbour comes home and sit on the steps smoking till you come home and worry when you're late and be amazed when you're early and give you sunflowers and go to your party and dance till I'm black and be sorry when I'm wrong and happy when you forgive me and look at your photos and wish I'd known you forever and hear your voice in my ear and feel your skin on my skin and get scared when you're angry and your eye has gone red and the other eye blue and your hair to the left and your face oriental and tell you you're gorgeous and hug you when you're anxious and hold you when you hurt and want you when I smell you and offend you when I touch you and whimper when I'm next to you and whimper when I'm not and dribble on your breast and smother you in the night and get cold when you take the blanket and hot when you don't and melt when you smile and dissolve when you laugh and not understand why you think I'm rejecting you when I'm not rejecting you and wonder how you could think I'd ever reject you and wonder who you are but accept you anyway and tell you about the tree angel enchanted forest boy who flew across the ocean because he loved you and write poems for you and wonder why you don't believe me and have a feeling so deep I can't find words for it and want to buy you a kitten I'd get jealous of because it would get more attention than me and keep you in bed when you have to go and cry like a baby when you finally do and get rid of the roaches and buy you presents you don't want and take them away again and ask you to marry me and you say no again but keep on asking because though you think I don't mean it I do always have from the first time I asked you and wander the city thinking it's empty without you and want what you want and think I'm losing myself but know I'm safe with you and tell you the worst of me and try to give you the best of me because you don't deserve any less and answer your questions when I'd rather not and tell you the truth when I really don't want to and try to be honest because I know you prefer it and think it's all over but hang on in for just ten more minutes before you throw me out of your life and forget who I am and try to get closer to you because it's beautiful learning to know you and well worth the effort and speak German to you badly and Hebrew to you worse and make love with you at three in the morning and somehow somehow somehow communicate some of the overwhelming undying overpowering unconditional all-encompassing heart-enriching mind-expanding on-going never-ending love I have for you.

I wish back then I’d known the Dolly Parton joke: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know that I’m not blonde.

His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless; he was vain of the wider knowledge he had acquired from the perusal of so many books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill to hide his contempt for his companions' stupidity. They complained that he was conceited; and, since he excelled only in matters which to them were unimportant, they asked satirically what he had to be conceited about. He was developing a sense of humour, and found that he had a knack of saying bitter things, which caught people on the raw; he said them because they amused him, hardly realising how much they hurt, and was much offended when he found that his victims regarded him with active dislike. The humiliations he suffered when he first went to school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows which he could never entirely overcome; he remained shy and silent. But though he did everything to alienate the sympathy of other boys he longed with all his heart for the popularity which to some was so easily accorded. These from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though he was inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with others, though he made little jokes at their expense, he would have given anything to change places with them.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men — friends, coworkers, strangers — giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

Emma rose to her feet, facing the faerie across the fleeing crowd. Gleaming from his weathered, barklike face, his eyes were yellow as a cat's. "Shadowhunter," he hissed. Emma reached back over her shoulder and closed her hand around the hilt of her sword, Cortana. The blade made a golden blur in the air as she drew it and pointed the tip at the fey. "No," she said. "I'm a candygram. This is my costume." The faerie looked puzzled. Emma sighed. "It's so hard to be sassy to the Fair Folk. You people never get jokes." "We are well known for our jests, japes, and ballads," the faerie said, clearly offended. "Some of our ballads last for weeks." "I don't have that kind of time," Emma said. "I'm a Shadowhunter. Quip fast, die young." She wiggled Cortana's tip impatiently. "Now turn out your pockets." "I have done nothing to break the Cold Peace," said the fey. "Technically true, but we do frown on stealing from mundanes," Emma said. "Turn out your pockets or I'll rip off one of your horns and shove it where the sun doesn't shine." The fey looked puzzled. "Where does the sun not shine? Is this a riddle?" Emma gave a martyred sigh and raised Cortana. "Turn them out, or I'll start peeling your bark off. My boyfriend and I just broke up, and I'm not in the best mood." The faerie began slowly to empty his pockets onto the ground, glaring at her all the while. "So you're single," he said. "I never would have guessed.

Now's not really the time for jokes," I growled. He looked offended."There's always time for sarcasm.

Are they real fires? Or are people just reacting to something? Just because there’s an alarm going doesn’t mean it’s a fire. And I think that people are confusing the two. It’s only a fire when it offends the fans, and the fans turn on you. Tosh has fans, and they get the joke. If you’ve watched enough Tracy Morgan, you let the worst thing go by. When did Tracy Morgan become Walter Cronkite? You have to mean something to me to offend me. You can’t break up with me if we don’t date.

What - what - what are you doing?" he demanded. "I am almost six hundred years old," Magnus claimed, and Ragnor snorted, since Magnus changed his age to suit himself every few weeks. Magnus swept on. "It does seem about time to learn a musical instrument." He flourished his new prize, a little stringed instrument that looked like a cousin of the lute that the lute was embarrassed to be related to. "It's called a charango. I am planning to become a charanguista!" "I wouldn't call that an instrument of music," Ragnor observed sourly. "An instrument of torture, perhaps." Magnus cradled the charango in his arms as if it were an easily offended baby. "It's a beautiful and very unique instrument! The sound box is made from an armadillo. Well, a dried armadillo shell." "That explains the sound you're making," said Ragnor. "Like a lost, hungry armadillo." "You are just jealous," Magnus remarked calmly. "Because you do not have the soul of a true artiste like myself." "Oh, I am positively green with envy," Ragnor snapped. "Come now, Ragnor. That's not fair," said Magnus. "You know I love it when you make jokes about your complexion." Magnus refused to be affected by Ragnor's cruel judgments. He regarded his fellow warlock with a lofty stare of superb indifference, raised his charango, and began to play again his defiant, beautiful tune. They both heard the staccato thump of frantically running feet from within the house, the swish of skirts, and then Catarina came rushing out into the courtyard. Her white hair was falling loose about her shoulders, and her face was the picture of alarm. "Magnus, Ragnor, I heard a cat making a most unearthly noise," she exclaimed. "From the sound of it, the poor creature must be direly sick. You have to help me find it!" Ragnor immediately collapsed with hysterical laughter on his windowsill. Magnus stared at Catarina for a moment, until he saw her lips twitch. "You are conspiring against me and my art," he declared. "You are a pack of conspirators." He began to play again. Catarina stopped him by putting a hand on his arm. "No, but seriously, Magnus," she said. "That noise is appalling." Magnus sighed. "Every warlock's a critic." "Why are you doing this?" "I have already explained myself to Ragnor. I wish to become proficient with a musical instrument. I have decided to devote myself to the art of the charanguista, and I wish to hear no more petty objections." "If we are all making lists of things we wish to hear no more . . . ," Ragnor murmured. Catarina, however, was smiling. "I see," she said. "Madam, you do not see." "I do. I see it all most clearly," Catarina assured him. "What is her name?" "I resent your implication," Magnus said. "There is no woman in the case. I am married to my music!" "Oh, all right," Catarina said. "What's his name, then?" His name was Imasu Morales, and he was gorgeous.

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

you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not. When

I quite understand you. You mean that an innocent lie for the sake of a good joke is harmless, and does not offend the human heart. Some people lie, if you like to put it so, out of pure friendship, in order to amuse their fellows; but when a man makes use of extravagance in order to show his disrespect and to make clear how the intimacy bores him, it is time for a man of honour to break off the said intimacy., and to teach the offender his place.

It is natural to want to employ your friends when you find yourself in times of need. The world is a harsh place, and your friends soften the harshness. Besides, you know them. Why depend on a stranger when you have a friend at hand? Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. TACITUS, c. A.D. 55-120 The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not. When you decide to hire a friend, you gradually discover the qualities he or she has kept hidden. Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything. People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favor can become oppressive: It means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades. The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive. Ingratitude has a long and deep history. It has demonstrated its powers for so many centuries, that it is truly amazing that people continue to underestimate them. Better to be wary. If you never expect gratitude from a friend, you will be pleasantly surprised when they do prove grateful. The problem with using or hiring friends is that it will inevitably limit your power. The friend is rarely the one who is most able to help you; and in the end, skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings.

Putting yourself in a position where you can be rejected, saying a joke that may not be funny, asserting an opinion that may offend others, joining a table of people you don’t know, telling a woman that you like her and want to date her. All of these things require you to stick your neck out on the line emotionally in some way. You’re making yourself vulnerable when you do them. In this way, vulnerability represents a form of power, a deep and subtle form of power.

I told you already that Mother Earth is our god, and the only thing that offends our god is waste and pollution, not words and pictures and jokes. I have nothing but sympathy for reverence of God in the abstract. Love of God and life is as natural as the force that holds the planets in their dance.

But I’ve been called: I’ve got to go. You know what that’s like. You answered the call of your boots.’ ‘That was a joke!’ said Tess, unexpectedly offended.

You’re on high alert the entire time, constantly looking out for manipulation & red flags. The slightest jokes will offend you.

Why are pretty girls always so stupid?” he grunted. “Hey! I don’t know whether to be offended or complimented by that,” I joked. “See? Stupid.

I wish back then I’d known the Dolly Parton joke: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know that I’m not blonde.” My real hair color is black.

A better standard would be intention. If someone says something that offends us - but their intentions was humor - than we should respond far differently to that than we would if the person intended to be cruel.

. . . in a fight between two men, their wives were not allowed to step in and grab the testicles of the opponent – not even for a joke. The offending hand would be cut off, which helped to ensure that it wouldn’t become a habit.

because you're going to get halfway through this book and giggle at non sequiturs about Hitler and abortions and poverty, and you'll feel superior to all the uptight, easily offended people who need to learn how to take a fucking joke, but then somewhere in here you'll read one random thing you're sensitive about, and everyone else will think it's hysterical, but you think, "Oh, that is way over the line." I apologize for that one thing. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.

You find that you’re set off by the most obscure triggers, unable to enjoy a date or some time with an old friend. You’re on high alert the entire time, constantly looking out for manipulation & red flags. The slightest jokes will offend you. That feeling of dread in your heart never seems to go away—warning you that anyone and everyone could be out to hurt you. And then, after you spend time with others, you over-analyze the experience and come up with a list of reasons that this person shouldn’t be in your life anymore. Then you feel awful for thinking those things, guilty and ashamed that you could be so disloyal.

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.

These are strange words, m’Lord. How do I take their meaning?” “Their meaning is whatever speaks to you. Are you incapable of listening?” “I have ears, m’Lord!” “Do you now? I cannot see them.” “Here, m’lord. Here and here!” Idaho pointed at his own ears as he spoke. “But they do not hear. Therefore you have no ears, neither here nor hear.” “You make a joke of me, m’Lord?” “To hear is to hear. That which exists cannot be made into itself for it already exists. To be is to be.” “Your strange words . . .” “Are but words. I spoke them. They are gone. No one heard them, therefore they no longer exist. If they no longer exist, perhaps they can be made to exist again and then perhaps someone will hear them.” “Why do you poke fun at me, m’Lord?” “I poke nothing at you except words. I do it without fear of offending because I have learned that you have no ears.” “I don’t understand you, m’Lord.” “That is the beginning of knowledge—the discovery of something we do not understand.

Did you notice how, like, half of this introduction was a rambling parenthetical? That shit is going to happen all the time. I apologize in advance for that, and also for offending you, because you're going to get halfway through this book and giggle at non sequiturs about Hitler and abortions and poverty, and you'll feel superior to all the uptight, easily offended people who need to learn how to take a f*cking joke, but then somewhere in here you'll read one random thing that you're sensitive about, and everyone else will think it's hysterical, but you'll think, "Oh, that is way over the line." I apologize for that one thing. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much—no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version—maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”) I waited patiently—years—for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy. But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed—she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you. But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool

it is natural to want to employ your friends when you find yourself in times of need. The world is a harsh place, and your friends soften the harshness. Besides, you know them. Why depend on a stranger when you have a friend at hand? The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each others jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes - maybe they mean, often they do not.

Desmond, I’m sorry. If I’ve offended you or your position in any way, it was unintentional.” He seemed to relax a little. “You have my word that any future insults will be much more personalized and meant only for you,” I added with a smile so wide he could not mistake my joking for malice. For reasons I couldn’t name, I didn’t want Desmond to dislike me.

An anonymous prank is one of the most efficacious ways to enforce discipline. A prank performed with appropriate finesse avoids a direct confrontation and the resulting laughter elicited from a prank informs the offender that their actions are unacceptable. The utilitarian aim of laughter is group improvement. A practical joke must avoid verging on cruelty.

No one could seem to think of me as both sexy and capable, or talented and hot. If I was sexy, they seemed to think I must be stupid. If I was hot, I couldn’t possibly be talented. I wish back then I’d known the Dolly Parton joke: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know that I’m not blonde.” My real hair color is black.

EVERYTHING SMELLED LIKE POISON. Two days after leaving Venice, Hazel still couldn’t get the noxious scent of eau de cow monster out of her nose. The seasickness didn’t help. The Argo II sailed down the Adriatic, a beautiful glittering expanse of blue; but Hazel couldn’t appreciate it, thanks to the constant rolling of the ship. Above deck, she tried to keep her eyes fixed on the horizon—the white cliffs that always seemed just a mile or so to the east. What country was that, Croatia? She wasn’t sure. She just wished she were on solid ground again. The thing that nauseated her most was the weasel. Last night, Hecate’s pet Gale had appeared in her cabin. Hazel woke from a nightmare, thinking, What is that smell? She found a furry rodent propped on her chest, staring at her with its beady black eyes. Nothing like waking up screaming, kicking off your covers, and dancing around your cabin while a weasel scampers between your feet, screeching and farting. Her friends rushed to her room to see if she was okay. The weasel was difficult to explain. Hazel could tell that Leo was trying hard not to make a joke. In the morning, once the excitement died down, Hazel decided to visit Coach Hedge, since he could talk to animals. She’d found his cabin door ajar and heard the coach inside, talking as if he were on the phone with someone—except they had no phones on board. Maybe he was sending a magical Iris-message? Hazel had heard that the Greeks used those a lot. “Sure, hon,” Hedge was saying. “Yeah, I know, baby. No, it’s great news, but—” His voice broke with emotion. Hazel suddenly felt horrible for eavesdropping. She would’ve backed away, but Gale squeaked at her heels. Hazel knocked on the coach’s door. Hedge poked his head out, scowling as usual, but his eyes were red. “What?” he growled. “Um…sorry,” Hazel said. “Are you okay?” The coach snorted and opened his door wide. “Kinda question is that?” There was no one else in the room. “I—” Hazel tried to remember why she was there. “I wondered if you could talk to my weasel.” The coach’s eyes narrowed. He lowered his voice. “Are we speaking in code? Is there an intruder aboard?” “Well, sort of.” Gale peeked out from behind Hazel’s feet and started chattering. The coach looked offended. He chattered back at the weasel. They had what sounded like a very intense argument. “What did she say?” Hazel asked. “A lot of rude things,” grumbled the satyr. “The gist of it: she’s here to see how it goes.” “How what goes?” Coach Hedge stomped his hoof. “How am I supposed to know? She’s a polecat! They never give a straight answer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got, uh, stuff…” He closed the door in her face. After breakfast, Hazel stood at the port rail, trying to settle her stomach. Next to her, Gale ran up and down the railing, passing gas; but the strong wind off the Adriatic helped whisk it away. Hazel

It may be that I am no longer able to joke--that it is no longer a satisfactory defense mechanism. Some people are funny, and some are not. I used to be funny, and perhaps I’m not any more. There may have been so many shocks and disappointments that the defense of humor no longer works. It may be that I have become rather grumpy because I’ve seen so many things that have offended me that I cannot deal with in terms of laughter.

Curious? Are you serious?” Her eyes widen. Yup. Definitely annoyed. “You are such a dick!” She drops her voice to a whisper when she says dick and I know it’s because it offends her schoolteacher sensibilities to swear in public. But hearing her whisper it combined with a quick glance around to make sure no one is listening to her, well, that shit is downright erotic. “Fascinated,” I confirm with a slight nod. “I mean, when you started in with the knock-knock jokes, wow.

The Worst Man in Australia Australians love The Simpsons, except, naturally, the episode where the family goes there. That episode was condemned in the Australian parliament, which is a Hooters, by the way. They didn’t object to us saying the Australian penal system involved kicking offenders with a giant boot, or that their prime minister’s office was an inner tube in a pond. Nope. What they didn’t like was our cast’s attempt at doing an Australian accent. Mind you, the true Australian accent is semi-incomprehensible

My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it—you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about—and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.

I could say: Don’t offend the bear, don’t tell bad jokes about him, have compassion on his bear heart; I could say, Think twice before you speak. I could say, Don’t take the name of anything in vain. But it’s far too late for that, because you can’t read this, because you can’t remember the word for read, because you are dizzy with aphasia, because the page darkens and ripples because it is liquid and unbroken, because God has bitten his own tongue and the first bright word of creation hovers in the formless void unspoken

The last time I’d been unwell, suicidally depressed, whatever you want to call it, the reactions of my friends and family had fallen into several different camps: The Let’s Laugh It Off merchants: Claire was the leading light. They hoped that joking about my state of mind would reduce it to a manageable size. Most likely to say, ‘Feeling any mad urges to fling yourself into the sea?’ The Depression Deniers: they were the ones who took the position that since there was no such thing as depression, nothing could be wrong with me. Once upon a time I’d have belonged in that category myself. A subset of the Deniers was The Tough Love people. Most likely to say, ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’ The It’s All About Me bunch: they were the ones who wailed that I couldn’t kill myself because they’d miss me so much. More often than not, I’d end up comforting them. My sister Anna and her boyfriend, Angelo, flew three thousand miles from New York just so I could dry their tears. Most likely to say, ‘Have you any idea how many people love you?’ The Runaways: lots and lots of people just stopped ringing me. Most of them I didn’t care about, but one or two were important to me. Their absence was down to fear; they were terrified that whatever I had, it was catching. Most likely to say, ‘I feel so helpless … God, is that the time?’ Bronagh – though it hurt me too much at the time to really acknowledge it – was the number one offender. The Woo-Woo crew: i.e. those purveying alternative cures. And actually there were hundreds of them – urging me to do reiki, yoga, homeopathy, bible study, sufi dance, cold showers, meditation, EFT, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, silent retreats, sweat lodges, felting, fasting, angel channelling or eating only blue food. Everyone had a story about something that had cured their auntie/boss/boyfriend/next-door neighbour. But my sister Rachel was the worst – she had me plagued. Not a day passed that she didn’t send me a link to some swizzer. Followed by a phone call ten minutes later to make sure I’d made an appointment. (And I was so desperate that I even gave plenty of them a go.) Most likely to say, ‘This man’s a miracle worker.’ Followed by: ‘That’s why he’s so expensive. Miracles don’t come cheap.’ There was often cross-pollination between the different groupings. Sometimes the Let’s Laugh It Off merchants teamed up with the Tough Love people to tell me that recovering from depression is ‘simply mind over matter’. You just decide you’re better. (The way you would if you had emphysema.) Or an All About Me would ring a member of the Woo-Woo crew and sob and sob about how selfish I was being and the Woo-Woo crew person would agree because I had refused to cough up two grand for a sweat lodge in Wicklow. Or one of the Runaways would tiptoe back for a sneaky look at me, then commandeer a Denier into launching a two-pronged attack, telling me how well I seemed. And actually that was the worst thing anyone could have done to me, because you can only sound like a self-pitying malingerer if you protest, ‘But I don’t feel well. I feel wretched beyond description.’ Not one person who loved me understood how I’d felt. They hadn’t a clue and I didn’t blame them, because, until it had happened to me, I hadn’t a clue either.

Dear Dan, I recently attended one of your lectures, and I was wondering why an Israeli guy telling Jewish jokes is wearing an Indian shirt? D.A.: In general I am not someone who should be asked for fashion advice, but this particular case might be the one exception........My solution? I figured that as long as I am wearing clothes from a different culture, no one is politically correct (and this includes almost everyone in the United States ) could complain that I'm underdressed. After all, any such critic could be offending a whole subcontinent.

Do you know why I remembered you?” he asked me suddenly. It was a question so out of nowhere that it took me a little while to figure out what he was talking about. “You mean from Latin Convention?” “Yeah.” “Was it my Coliseum model?” I was only half-joking. Steven had helped me build it; it had been pretty impressive. “No.” Cam ran his hand through his hair. He wouldn’t look at me. “It’s because I thought you were really pretty. Like, maybe the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.” I laughed. In the car, it sounded really loud. “Yeah, right. Nice try, Sextus.” “I mean it,” he insisted, his voice rising. “You’re making that up.” I didn’t believe it could be true. I didn’t want to let myself believe it. With the boys any compliment like this would always be the first part of a joke. He shook his head, lips tight. He was offended that I didn’t believe him. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. I just didn’t see how it could be true. It was almost mean of him to lie about it. I knew what I looked like back then, and I wasn’t the prettiest girl anybody had ever seen, not with my thick glasses and chubby cheeks and little-girl body. Cam looked me in the eyes then. “The first day, you wore a blue dress. It was, like, corduroy or something. It made your eyes look really blue.” “My eyes are gray,” I said. “Yes, but that dress made them look blue.” He looked so sweet, the way he watched me, waiting for my reaction. His cheeks were flushed peach. I swallowed hard and said, “Why didn’t you come up to me?” He shrugged. “You were always with your friends. I watched you that whole week, trying to get up the nerve. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you at the bonfire that night. Pretty bizarre, huh?” Cam laughed, but he sounded embarrassed. “Pretty bizarre,” I echoed. I couldn’t believe he’d noticed me. With Taylor by my side, who would have even bothered to look at me? “I almost messed up my Catullus speech on purpose, so you’d win,” he said, remembering. He inched a little closer to me. “I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. I reached out and touched his arm. My hand shook. “I wish you had come up to me.” That’s when he dipped his head low and kissed me. I didn’t let go of the door handle. All I could think was, I wish this had been my first kiss.

She told me some of the problems they had had this particular year. One of them was, where should the Russian ambassador sit? The problem always is, at dinners like this, who sits nearer to the king. The Prize-winners normally sit closer to the king than the diplomatic corps does. And the order in which the diplomats sit is determined according to the length of time they have been in Sweden. Now at that time, the United States ambassador had been in Sweden longer than the Russian ambassador. But that year, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was Mr. Sholokhov, a Russian, and the Russian ambassador wanted to be Mr. Sholokhov’s translator—and therefore to sit next to him. So the problem was how to let the Russian ambassador sit closer to the king without offending the United States ambassador and the rest of the diplomatic corps. She said, “You should have seen what a fuss they went through—letters back and forth, telephone calls, and so on—before I ever got permission to have the ambassador sit next to Mr. Sholokhov. It was finally agreed that the ambassador wouldn’t officially represent the embassy of the Soviet Union that evening; rather, he was to be only the translator for Mr. Sholokhov.

The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not. When you decide to hire a friend, you gradually discover the qualities he or she has kept hidden. Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything.

Where’s the training ground?” He thought he knew my reason for asking. “Oh no you don’t,” he said. “This isn’t Sparta. You heard what Lord Oeneus thinks of women who act like men. You’ll offend him.” “What offends him is women who do better than men,” I said. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to do sword practice with any of them.” I indicated the still-swaggering hunters. “If one of them beats me, he’ll claim I had twelve arms, six heads, and spat poison. I just want to watch how you’re all preparing for the hunt.” “Well, well, so you want to watch men exercising?” Castor snickered. “My little sister’s growing up!” I gave him a hard look. “The boar isn’t the only pig around here.” That made him laugh outright. “Ah, Helen, I’m only joking.

They're not just looking to be offended. They are hunting for opportunities to vilify people. These opportunistic attacks are impossible to anticipate because in many cases the target doesn't even know the SJW who complained to Human Resources or contacted the media, and even in the case of a public accusation on Twitter or a blog, he probably won't be aware of the attack until it has already blown up on social media because he doesn't follow his accuser. Sir Tim Hunt had probably made similar jokes about female scientists in laboratories before, but he had not made them in front of a status-seeking SJW like Connie St. Louis. Sensing an opportunity to make a name for herself by vilifying a Nobel Prize winner, she struck, and in doing so promptly put herself in front of the charge.

How to look after your very drunk friend Step 1: Find her in the bathroom, slumped against the towel rack Step 2: Ask her if she needs to be sick. Try not to get offended when she yells that she's NOT DRUNK Step 3: Tell her it's fine when she apologises, bursts into tears and then falls asleep on your shoulder. [...] Step 6: Root around in her front pocket for her keys. Make a joke about inappropriate touching. Laugh when she earnestly tells you that you could touch her anywhere, because nothing's inappropriate when you're best friends. Step 7: Write it down so you can mock her with it tomorrow, and for the rest of time. Step 8: Tell her mother that yes, you both had a great time. Pour two glasses of water, carry them both up the stairs (Make her go first, so you can catch her if she trips)

Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

If someone publishes an essay, or tells a joke, or performs a play that forwards a problematic idea the U.S. government generally wouldn't try to stop that person from doing so. Even if they could. If the expression doesn't involve national security the government generally doesn't give a shit. But, if enough vocal consumers are personally offended, they can silence that artist just as effectively. They can petition advertisers and marginalize the artist's reception and economically remove that individual from whatever platform he or she happens to utilize simply because there are no expression based platforms that don't have an economic underpinning. It's one of those situations where the practical manifestation is the opposite of the technical intention. As Americans we tend to look down on European countries that impose legal limitations on speech. Yet as long as speakers in those countries stay within the specified boundaries discourse is allowed relatively unfettered, even when it's unpopular. In the U.S., there are absolutely no speech boundaries imposed by the government. So the citizenry creates its own limitations based on the arbitrary values of whichever activist group is most successful at inflicting its worldview upon an economically fragile public sphere. As a consequence, the United States is a safe space for those who want to criticize the government, but a dangerous place for those who want to advance unpopular thoughts about any other subject that could be deemed insulting or discomforting. Some would argue that this trade off is worth it. Time may prove otherwise.

Better take her uniform -- all that gear," the second MetaCop suggests, not unlewdly. The manager looks at Y.T., trying not to let his gaze travel sinfully up and down her body. For thousands of years his people have survived on alertness: waiting for Mongols to come galloping over the horizon, waiting for repeat offenders to swing sawed-off shotguns across their check-out counters. His alertness right now is palpable and painful; he's like a goblet of hot nitroglycerin. The added question of sexual misconduct makes it even worse. To him it's no joke. Y.T. shrugs, trying to think of something unnerving and wacky. At this point, she is supposed to squeal and shrink, wriggle and whine, swoon and beg. They are threatening to take her clothes. How awful. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. Predictable law-abiding behavior lulls drivers. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane, assume you will stay there, can't handle it when you leave that little box. Y.T. is not fond of boxes. Y.T. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane, establishing a precedent of scary randomness. Keeps people on their toes, makes them react to her, instead of the other way round. Now these men are trying to put her in a box, make her follow rules. She unzips her coverall all the way down below her navel. Underneath is naught but billowing pale flesh. The MetaCops raise their eyebrows. The manager jumps back, raises both hands up to form a visual shield, protecting himself from the damaging input. "No, no, nor' he says. Y.T. shrugs, zips herself back up.

Well, I saved you today, didn’t I? Just like I saved you before. You walked out of the Bastion free, without a scratch, and if any Cokyrian but me had caught you with that dagger, you might be drawn and quartered by now.” “You didn’t save me from that butcher,” I said irritably. “But you’re right. About today, I mean.” I could sense his satisfaction, which irritated me all the more. “So accept my thanks, but stay away from me. We’re not friends, you know.” I was nearing my neighborhood and didn’t want anyone to see me with him. He stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop. “We’re not friends yet. But you’ve thought about it. And you just thanked me.” “Are you delusional?” “No. You just said thank you to the faceless Cokyrian soldier who arrested you.” “Don’t you ever stop?” I demanded, trying in vain to move around him. “I haven’t even started.” “What does that mean?” There was silence as Saadi glanced up and down the street. “I want to know where you got that dagger. Or at least what story you told.” “Why don’t you ask Commander Narian? The two of you seemed fairly close.” “Quit making jokes.” “I haven’t made a single one.” “Well?” “It was my father’s,” I said, clinging to the lie Queen Alera had provided, whether by mistake or not. “Oh.” This seemed to take Saadi aback. “And now, because of you, I don’t have it anymore.” I knew I was pressing my luck, but I wanted to make him feel bad. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, seeming sincere enough. Thinking I had maybe, finally, succeeded in getting him to leave me alone, I stepped around him. “Shaselle?” I stopped again, without the slightest idea why. “Your father--what was he like?” The question shocked me; I also wasn’t sure I could answer it without crying. But Saadi appeared so genuinely interested that I couldn’t disregard him. “You have no right to ask me that,” I answered out of principle. “But for your information, he was the strongest, bravest, kindest and best-humored man I ever knew. And none of it was because he took what was handed to him.” For the second time, I attempted a dramatic departure. “Shaselle?” “What now?” I incredulously exclaimed. “Do you have plans tomorrow?” “What?” “I have a day off duty. We could--” “No!” I shouted. “What is this? You expect me to spend a day with you, a Cokyrian--a Cokyrian I can’t stand?” “Yes,” he affirmed, despite my outburst. I laughed in disbelief. “I won’t. This is ridiculous. You’re ridiculous. Enjoy your time off duty with your own kind.” Turning, I sprinted down the street, and though he called after me yet again, I ignored him. As I neared my house, I glanced behind once or twice to assure myself he wasn’t following. He was nowhere in sight. I reached the security of my home just in time for dinner, and just in time to cut off Mother’s growing displeasure--the first step in her progression to anger. I smiled at her, hurried to wash, and was a perfect lady throughout the meal. Afterward I retired to my room, picking a book from my shelf to occupy me until my eyes drooped. Instead of words on pages, however, I kept seeing Saadi’s face--his clear blue eyes, that irritating hair, those freckles across his nose that made me lose willpower. What if I had offended him earlier? He had only asked to spend time with me, and I had mocked him. But he was Cokyrian. It was ludicrous for him to be pursuing my company. It was dangerous for me to be in his. And that, I suddenly realized, was part of the reason I very much wanted to be with him. Saadi aggravated me, confused me, scared me, and yet I could no longer deny that he intrigued me in a way no one else ever had.

Ian’s method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven—who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him—was less subtle and even more effective. “Belhaven,” Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight. The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian’s low conversation with him. “I find your presence repugnant,” Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?” Belhaven’s mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a deathly gray. “Are—are you trying to force a—duel?” “Normally one doesn’t bother shooting a repulsive toad, but in this instance I’m prepared to make an exception, since this toad doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut!” “A duel, with you?” he gasped. “Why, it would be no contest—none at all. Everyone knows what kind of marksman you are. It would be murder.” Ian leaned close, speaking between his clenched teeth. “It’s going to be murder, you miserable little opium-eater, unless you suddenly remember very vocally that you’ve been joking about Elizabeth Cameron’s visit.” At the mention of opium the glass slid from his fingers and crashed to the floor. “I have just realized I was joking.” “Good,” Ian said, restraining the urge to strangle him. “Now start remembering it all over the ballroom!” “Now that, Thornton,” said an amused voice from Ian’s shoulder as Belhaven scurried off to begin doing as bidden, “makes me hesitate to say that he is not lying.” Still angry with Belhaven, Ian turned in surprise to see John Marchman standing there. “She was with me as well,” Marchman said. “All aboveboard, for God’s sake, so don’t look at me like I’m Belhaven. Her aunt Berta was there every moment.” “Her what?” Ian said, caught between fury and amusement. “Her Aunt Berta. Stout little woman who doesn’t say much.” “See that you follow her example,” Ian warned darkly.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.

I glanced over and saw Wyatt glaring at me. Journey’s “Lovin’ Touchin’, Squeezin’” was playing on the radio. “What?” I asked. “You secretly hate me, don’t you.” He gestured toward the radio. “You can’t stand the thought of me taking a much needed nap and leaving you to drive without conversation. You’re torturing me with this sappy stuff.” “It’s Journey. I love this song.” Wyatt mumbled something under his breath, picked up the CD case, and started looking through it. He paused with a choked noise, his eyes growing huge. “You’re joking, Sam. Justin Bieber? What are you, a twelve-year old girl?” There’s gonna be one less lonely girl, I sang in my head. That was a great song. How could he not like that song? Still, I squirmed a bit in embarrassment. “A twelve-year old girl gave me that CD,” I lied. “For my birthday.” Wyatt snorted. “It’s a good thing you’re a terrible liar. Otherwise, I’d be horrified at the thought that a demon has been hanging out with a bunch of giggling pre-teens.” He continued to thumb through the CDs. “Air Supply Greatest Hits? No, no, I’m wrong here. It’s an Air Supply cover band in Spanish.” He waved the offending CD in my face. “Sam, what on earth are you thinking? How did you even get this thing?” “Some tenant left it behind,” I told him. “We evicted him, and there were all these CDs. Most were in Spanish, but I’ve got a Barry Manilow in there, too. That one’s in English.” Wyatt looked at me a moment, and with the fastest movement I’ve ever seen, rolled down the window and tossed the case of CDs out onto the highway. It barely hit the road before a semi plowed over it. I was pissed. “You asshole. I liked those CDs. I don’t come over to your house and trash your video games, or drive over your controllers. If you think that will make me listen to that Dubstep crap for the next two hours, then you better fucking think again.” “I’m sorry Sam, but it’s past time for a musical intervention here. You can’t keep listening to this stuff. It wasn’t even remotely good when it was popular, and it certainly hasn’t gained anything over time. You need to pull yourself together and try to expand your musical interests a bit. You’re on a downward spiral, and if you keep this up, you’ll find yourself friendless, living in a box in a back alley, stinking of your own excrement, and covered in track marks.” I looked at him in surprise. I had no idea Air Supply led to lack of bowel control and hard core drug usage. I wondered if it was something subliminal, a kind of compulsion programmed into the lyrics. Was Russell Hitchcock a sorcerer? He didn’t look that menacing to me, but sorcerers were pretty sneaky. Even so, I was sure Justin Bieber was okay. As soon as we hit a rest stop, I was ordering a replacement from my iPhone.

In the entire endless evening his serenity received a jolt only a few times. The first was when someone who didn’t know who he was confided that only two months ago Lady Elizabeth’s uncle had sent out invitations to all her former suitors offering her hand in marriage. Suppressing his shock and loathing for her uncle, Ian had pinned an amused smile on his face and confided, “I’m acquainted with the lady’s uncle, and I regret to say he’s a little mad. As you know, that sort of thing runs,” Ian had finished smoothly, “in our finest families.” The reference to England’s hopeless King George was unmistakable, and the man had laughed uproariously at the joke. “True,” he agreed. “Lamentably true.” Then he went off to spread the word that Elizabeth’s uncle was a confirmed loose screw. Ian’s method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven-who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him-was less subtle and even more effective. “Belhaven,” Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight. The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian’s low conversation with him. “I find your presence repugnant,” Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?” Belhaven’s mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a deathly gray. “Are-are you trying to force a-duel?” “Normally one doesn’t bother shooting a repulsive toad, but in this instance I’m prepared to make an exception, since this toad doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut!” “A duel, with you?” he gasped. “Why, it would be no contest-none at all. Everyone knows what sort of marksman you are. It would be murder.” Ian leaned close, speaking between his clenched teeth. “It’s going to be murder, you miserable little opium-eater, unless you suddenly remember very vocally that you’ve been joking about Elizabeth Cameron’s visit.” At the mention of opium the glass slid from his fingers and crashed to the floor. “I have just realized I was joking.” “Good,” Ian said, restraining the urge to strangle him. “Now start remembering it all over this ballroom!” “Now that, Thornton,” said an amused voice from Ian’s shoulder as Belhaven scurried off to begin doing as bidden, “makes me hesitate to say that he is not lying.” Still angry with Belhaven, Ian turned in surprise to see John Marchman standing there. “She was with me as well,” Marchman sad. “All aboveboard, for God’s sake, so don’t look at me like I’m Belhaven. Her aunt Berta was there every moment.” “Her what?” Ian said, caught between fury and amusement. “Her Aunt Berta. Stout little woman who doesn’t say much.” “See that you follow her example,” Ian warned darkly. John Marchman, who had been privileged to fish at Ian’s marvelous stream in Scotland, gave his friend an offended look. “I daresay you’ve no business challenging my honor. I was considering marrying Elizabeth to keep her out of Belhaven’s clutches; you were only going to shoot him. It seems to me that my sacrifice was-“ “You were what?” Ian said, feeling as if he’d walked in on a play in the middle of the second act and couldn’t seem to hold onto the thread of the plot or the identity of the players. “Her uncle turned me down. Got a better offer.” “Your life will be more peaceful, believe me,” Ian said dryly, and he left to find a footman with a tray of drinks.

Do we need to talk about my kissing you a year ago? I’ve behaved myself for two weeks, Ellen, and hope by action I have reassured you where words would not.” Silence or the summer evening equivalent of it, with crickets chirping, the occasional squeal of a passing bat, and the breeze riffling through the woods nearby. “Ellen?” Val withdrew his hand, which Ellen had been holding for some minutes, and slid his arm around her waist, urging her closer. “A woman gone silent unnerves a man. Talk to me, sweetheart. I would not offend you, but neither will I fare well continuing the pretense we are strangers.” He felt the tension in her, the stiffness against his side, and regretted it. In the past two weeks, he’d all but convinced himself he was recalling a dream of her not a real kiss, and then he’d catch her smiling at Day and Phil or joking with Darius, and the clench in his vitals would assure him that kiss had been very, very real. At least for him. For him, that kiss had been a work of sheer art. “My husband seldom used my name. I was my dear, or my lady, or occasionally, dear wife. I was not Ellen, and I was most assuredly not his sweetheart. And to you I am the next thing to a stranger.” Val’s left hand, the one she’d just held for such long, lovely moments between her own, drifted up to trace slow patterns on her back. “We’re strangers who kissed. Passionately, if memory serves.” “But on only one occasion and that nearly a year ago.” “Should I have written? I did not think to see you again, nor you me, I’m guessing.” Now he wished he’d written, though it would hardly have been proper, even to a widow. That hand Valentine considered so damaged continued its easy caresses on Ellen’s back, intent on stealing the starch from her spine and the resolve from her best intentions. And she must have liked his touch, because the longer he stroked his hand over her back, the more she relaxed and leaned against him. “I did not think to see you again,” Ellen admitted. “It would have been much easier had you kept to your place in my memory and imagination. But here you are.” “Here we are.” Haunting a woman’s imagination had to be a good thing for a man whose own dreams had turned to nightmares. “Sitting on the porch in the moonlight, trying to sort out a single kiss from months ago.” “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Ellen said, her head coming to rest on Val’s shoulder as if the weight of truth were a wearying thing. “But I’m lonely and sometimes a little desperate, and it seemed safe, to steal a kiss from a handsome stranger.” “It was safe,” Val assured her, seeing the matter from her perspective. In the year since he’d seen Ellen FitzEngle, he’d hardly been celibate. He wasn’t a profligate Philistine, but neither was he a monk. There had been an older maid in Nick’s household, some professional ladies up in York, the rare trip upstairs at David’s brothel, and the frequent occasion of self-gratification. But he surmised Ellen, despite the privileges of widowhood, had not been kissed or cuddled or swived or flirted with in all those days and weeks and months. “And now?” Ellen pressed. “You show up on my porch after dark and think perhaps it’s still safe, and here I am, doing not one thing to dissuade you.” “You are safe with me, Ellen.” He punctuated the sentiment with a kiss to her temple then rested his cheek where his lips had been. “I am a gentleman, if nothing else. I might try to steal a kiss, but you can stop me with a word from even that at any time. The question is, how safe do you want to be?” “Shame

First, he’s a billionaire, and a seventy-year-old man. Meaning, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass anymore about anything other than what matters. He’s lived a wild life already—so he doesn’t care who his casual comments offend. When he makes a joke it’s like when a baby farts. It’s nothing personal, the baby’s forgotten it, while everyone is choking out in the room. But the baby doesn’t care. I also had to admit that he’s never been in public office, so he doesn’t know how to be that particular kind of phony. I mean the phony that we all accept—which I call the “mandatory fake.” The mandatory fake is the married news anchor who condemns unseemly sexual behavior while banging Dalmatians in a nearby hotel. Being an old rich uncle who’s never been in politics, Trump has no familiarity with mandatory fake. There is, however, a different kind of fakery in Trump’s world of real estate fibbery. But such lies—salesman’s lies—are deliberately obvious by their excess. You know a salesman is lying when he tells you the car you’re buying from him was only driven by a little old lady once a week to church, which is great because she lives in the attic above the church! A salesman’s lie is done with a wink and an exaggeration (“This is the biggest crowd ever!”). A politician’s lie is a promise that could very well be true, but never is (“Read my lips, no new taxes”). You see the difference? Trump’s lies are common and do not insult us, because he assumes we’re all in on the joke. Politicians are daring you to go against your own innate skepticism (which is always a mistake). Am I “Trump-splaining”? Yes, I am. For now that he’s our president and up against so much, it’s no longer fealty to do so. It’s actually fairness. Anyway, as a Holmes, I’ve since reevaluated some positions that I’ve taken for granted. I’ve looked at the research on illegal immigration and its effects on unemployment. I’ve also looked harder at crime numbers, legal vs. illegal offenders. I’ve pretty much stuck to my original precepts, but I realize that ideology ultimately helps no one in that debate.

For instance, making yourself vulnerable doesn’t just mean being willing to share your fears or insecurities. It can mean putting yourself in a position where you can be rejected, saying a joke that may not be funny, asserting an opinion that may offend others, introducing yourself to a group of people you don’t know, telling a woman that you like her and want to date her. All of these things require you to stick your neck out on the line emotionally in some way. You’re making yourself vulnerable when you do them.

The Grits Guide to Southern Humor “I am not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…I also know I’m not blonde!” -Dolly Parton, Tennessee Grits

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.

When I'm sitting in my counselor chair and I hear these phrases being spoken to a partner, I often stop the action and say "You are heading in the wrong direction. Proceed only if you intend to wreck this relationship.": "Haven't you gotten over that yet?" "I'm sorry that you were offended." "I asked for and received forgiveness from God." "I should be excused because I..." "You're too sensitive. It was only joking." "Why do you always..." "If you hadn't..." "You sound like your mother." "That's just silly." "That's life." "What's the big deal?" "To the extent that you were offended..." "Gimme a break." "You just need to get over it." "There's nothing I can do about that now. I can't take away the past." "Why can't you let bygones be bygones?

As for your restaurant, good luck. I have a feeling you'll need it." "Why?" "Because you're so...so, what's the word? Basic. Like American bread or that horrible cheese. Bistro Exotique? Is this your idea of a joke?" Oh. No. He didn't.

From the Introduction by the author: Uncle Remus...is the archetypal good father. He jokes, he teases, he pretends to be annoyed, he feigns anger and hurt when offended. But we know the truth of the man is his dignity, his self-respect, and above all, his love. It is a love that is difficult to describe, especially in a time when love is sentimentalized in an unceasing effluvium of popular music, television drams, and films. Thus, we forget or never learn that love is tough, that loves has the brilliant hardness of diamonds, the cutting clarity of the most rational thought.

In the old days, when people wrote letters to each other on paper, they would occasionally write “ha ha” after a joke, to make sure the recipient knew the writer was being funny. When email took over the world in the 1980s, there were millions of instances of people writing jokes in their mail and the recipient being hurt or offended, not realizing that a joke had been made. Without standard verbal and visual cues, people had trouble consistently recognizing comedy as comedy. Thus the smiley face started appearing after any line that was meant to be a joke. This was joined by the winking face and a host of other expressions designed to give the reader a sense of the attitude beneath the words.

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?

But this is what it means to be Palestinian. You can live anywhere you want, except Palestine, and you can talk about anything you want, except Palestine. you see, the Jews I "offended" that night were not offended by my joke. No, they were offended by the fact that I am Palestinian. They didn't even really hear the joke. They probably heard "Palestinian" and "Jews" and said, "Hey, now wait a minute!" You see, supporters of Israel are offended by the mere presence of Palestinians, by the mere recital of some sort of Palestinian narrative. In some way, it makes them very uncomfortable. It's kind of like that when you know you're doing something wrong, but you do it anyway. Any Palestinian in the room makes them uneasy. Talking about Israel and its policies makes them edgy. I guess I understand. I'm sure the slaveholders didn't like talking about slavery either.

Can you eat all of that?” “Are you joking? Of course I can.” Xander acts offended.

Are you sensitive to light sarcasm? Do you have trouble laughing at jokes? Usually, people who are stressed out and overly serious get most offended by sarcasm because their life is all work and no play. If we can learn to laugh at ourselves and our mistakes, life will become more of an experiment in finding out what makes us happy. And finding happiness means finding positivity.

A Dyslexic man walks into a bra

*I've tried phoning Stephen Hawking many times but I keep getting his answering machine.

… A wonderful collection of truths, and almost all are inconvenient’. ‘… Something here to offend everyone’. ‘… Everything from burlesque to parody, and with a sprinkling of serious commentary to confound the believers’. In the interest of balance however, here are some quotes from reviews which might have been written by others less inclined to view Heresies favorably. Again, I have undertaken this task on their behalf: “…a random assortment of schoolboy jokes. Possibly enjoyable for those who like juvenile humour – assuming they find it funny at all.” “The attempts at serious commentary are laughable, while the so-called heretical viewpoints are the unfunny fancies of a feeble mind.” “… Betrays an underlying resentment – disguised as ‘heresy’ – of those of eminence and achievement in music’s historical record.” Hmm. Can they all be right?

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.

if male comics want to play the “offended” game, I can’t think of anything more embarrassingly pee-pants than throwing a tantrum because someone didn’t like your fucking joke.)

One day the teacher walks into her classroom and notices that someone has written the word PENIS in tiny letters on the blackboard. She scans the class looking for a guilty face. Finding none, she erases the obscenity and begins class. The next day, the word PENIS is written on the board again, this time in bigger letters stretching about halfway across the board. Again, the teacher looks around in vain for the culprit, erases the graffito and proceeds with the day’s lesson. Every morning for nearly a week the trend continues, and each day the word appears in larger letters. Each day she rubs them out vigorously. At the end of the week, the teacher walks in expecting to be greeted yet again by the offending word. Instead, she finds this: “The more you rub it, the bigger it gets.

Little Jimmy got a parrot for Christmas. The bird was fully grown, with a very bad attitude and a worse vocabulary. Every other word out of its beak was an expletive; those that weren’t expletives were, to say the least, rude. Jimmy tried to change the bird’s habits by constantly saying sweet, polite words, playing soft music, anything he could think of. Nothing worked. He yelled at the bird and the bird got worse. He shook the bird and the bird got madder and even more revolting. Finally, in a moment of desperation, Jimmy put the parrot in the freezer. For a few moments he heard the bird swearing, squawking, kicking, and screaming and then, suddenly, there was absolute quiet. Jimmy was frightened that he might have actually hurt the bird, and quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto Jimmy’s extended arm and said, “I’m sorry that I offended you with my language and my actions, and I ask your forgiveness. I will endeavor to correct my behavior.” Jimmy was astounded at the change in the bird’s attitude and was about to ask what had changed him, when the parrot said, “May I ask what the chicken did?

A young doctor moved to town and proceeded to set up his practice. He had a new sign painted proclaiming his specialties: Homosexuals & Hemorrhoids.” The town fathers were upset by the sign and demanded that he change it. The young physician was eager to please, so he put up a new sign: “Queers & Rears.” As you can imagine, the town fathers were really fuming about that one, and they demanded that the doctor come up with a decent sign, one that would not offend the townspeople. “Aha!” said the doctor. Soon the sign over his office proclaimed: “Odds & Ends.

But it isn’t the fun of DIY invention, urban exploration, physical danger, and civil disorder that the Z-Boys enjoyed in 1976. It is fun within serious limits, and for all of its thrills it is (by contrast) scripted. And rather obedient. The fact that there are public skateparks and high-performance skateboards signals progress: America has embraced this sport, as it did bicycles in the nineteenth century. Towns want to make skating safe and acceptable. The economy has more opportunity to grow. America is better off for all of this. Yet such government and commercial intervention in a sport that was born of radical liberty means that the fun itself has changed; it has become mediated. For the skaters who take pride in their flashy store-bought equipment have already missed the Z-Boys’ joke: Skating is a guerrilla activity. It’s the fun of beating, not supporting, the system. P. T. Barnum said it himself: all of business is humbug. How else could business turn a profit, if it didn’t trick you with advertising? If it didn’t hook you with its product? This particular brand of humbug was perfected in the late 1960s, when merchandise was developed and marketed and sold to make Americans feel like rebels. Now, as then, customers always pay for this privilege, and purveyors keep it safe (and generally clean) to curb their liability. They can’t afford customers taking real risks. Plus it’s bad for business to encourage real rebellion. And yet, marketers know Americans love fun—they have known this for centuries. And they know that Americans, especially kids, crave autonomy and participation, so they simulate the DIY experience at franchises like the Build-A-Bear “workshops,” where kids construct teddy bears from limited options, or “DIY” restaurants, where customers pay to grill their own steaks, fry their own pancakes, make their own Bloody Marys. These pay-to-play stores and restaurants are, in a sense, more active, more “fun,” than their traditional competition: that’s their big selling point. But in both cases (as Barnum knew) the joke is still on you: the personalized bear is a standardized mishmash, the personalized food is often inedible. As Las Vegas knows, the house always wins. In the history of radical American fun, pleasure comes from resistance, risk, and participation—the same virtues celebrated in the “Port Huron Statement” and the Digger Papers, in the flapper’s slang and the Pinkster Ode. In the history of commercial amusement, most pleasures for sale are by necessity passive. They curtail creativity and they limit participation (as they do, say, in a laser-tag arena) to a narrow range of calculated surprises, often amplified by dazzling technology. To this extent, TV and computer screens, from the tiny to the colossal, have become the scourge of American fun. The ubiquity of TV screens in public spaces (even in taxicabs and elevators) shows that such viewing isn’t amusement at all but rather an aggressive, ubiquitous distraction. Although a punky insurgency of heedless satire has stung the airwaves in recent decades—from equal-opportunity offenders like The Simpsons and South Park to Comedy Central’s rabble-rousing pundits, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—the prevailing “fun” of commercial amusement puts minimal demands on citizens, besides their time and money. TV’s inherent ease seems to be its appeal, but it also sends a sobering, Jumbotron-sized message about the health of the public sphere.

president his daily briefing. He concluded by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed." "OH NO!" the President yelled. "That's terrible!" His staff sat stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sat, head in hands. Finally, the President looked up and asked, "Exactly how many is a brazillion?

So unrealistic.” “Excuse me?” Liam asked, eyeing the offending book. “Nothing,” I huffed. “Doesn’t look like nothing,” he countered. “Freaking Natalie and her fairy tale bullshit.” I let out a breath so heavy a lock of hair blew away from my face. The tiniest smirk curled on Liam’s lips. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled she got the happy ending she was searching for, but that’s not for everyone. These books she reads—there’s no way ninety-nine percent of these scenarios would ever happen. It’s false advertising for how life and love actually unfold, creating unrealistic expectations for men and women alike.” How so?” Narrowing my eyes across the table at him, I challenged, “Have you ever read one of these romance novels?” “Can’t say that I have,” he admitted. “Well, let me enlighten you. They’re all variations of the same story—the girl usually has some kind of a hang-up, and this perfect man comes along and makes her believe in love. Blah, blah, blah. Then something happens, a conflict, and they break up—every damn time. Then someone realizes they’re an idiot and apologizes—sometimes there’s a grand gesture—but they always end up back together. Life doesn’t work like that. Not all women are broken, and not all men are perfect. And don’t even get me started on how all the men are gods in bed with huge dicks.” Liam snorted. “Are they not, then?” “Don’t.” I was not in the mood and threw him a death glare. Throwing his hands up in defense, he asked, “What? I can only speak for myself, so I don’t know what all the other men are up to.” “Not funny, Liam.” Those piercing blue eyes found mine. “Who said I was joking, Amy?

When humor fails or offends, it can be tempting to brush it off as the other person’s problem—“he didn’t get the joke” or “she’s being too sensitive”—instead of stopping to consider how it might be our problem. In these moments, lean in: trust their reaction, understand and acknowledge your mistake, reflect on your blind spots, and make it right. Don’t just apologize, get out the power washer.

Hey!” Dad pointed his finger at his daughter. “Be nice to your brother. His jokes are just fine.” Jack looked offended. Kate rolled her eyes. “I was talking about you, Dad.

I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation to have with a child.” “I won’t talk to you if you keep raising your voice.” “That was a mean joke; I’m offended.” “I just said something, and you dismissed me. Why?

A couple of miles down the road from Catulus’ villa we passed another large house that appeared to be abandoned. It looked as though someone had set fire to it and left the ruins. Most of the roof had fallen in. “What happened to that place?” Aurora asked, turning to one of Catulus’ men, a tall, gloomy fellow named Syrus. “Ghouls,” he said. “Did you say ghouls?” “Yes. Creatures that would eat humans or animals and take on the shape of whoever or whatever they ate.” He sounded utterly serious. Some people are able to make their jokes more believable that way. From the other side of Aurora I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s preposterous.” “All I know is what I’m told, my lord. It happened some time ago, when I was a boy.” “What happened?” “The couple that lived there—Leander and Chloe was their names—they had no children. When they got old they hired some people to help them run the place. Turns out, though, the people they hired was a pack of these flesh-eating ghouls.” I shook my head in disbelief. “People around here actually believe this nonsense?” Syrus looked a bit offended. “Call it that if you will, my lord. When animals began disappearing and, finally, a couple of villagers disappeared, folks started suspecting something. They traced it all to that house.” “Traced what?” I asked. “Strange noises, glimpses of beasts, occasional bones. They attacked the place and set fire to it. We don’t know if they killed the ghouls. They could have changed their shapes and got away.” “What happened to Leander and Chloe?” Aurora asked. “Never seen again. Some around here think they was ghouls themselves. Or maybe eaten by the ghouls.

Mom was excited to get back to the island, watching as it appeared in the distance. Her anticipation turned to dread, and she gasped, her hands on her mouth, when she saw the dock they had worked so hard on before gone. “What happened?” she asked, breaking her silence for the first time. “I’m pretty sure this was Ortho's work. He seemed to really hate villagers and destroyed every village he came across,” Dad said with a frown. Mom’s face softened. “I’m glad he can't do that anymore. This is so sad.” They pulled up to the island, stretching as they stepped from their boats. “We should probably fix up a shelter,” Dad said. “We’ll need a place for when it gets dark. Then I think we should strategize for this ocean monument trip we have to make.” “Oooh!” Kate said. “We should have turtle shell helmets!” Mom gasped. “Kate! Why would you do that to the poor turtles?” Kate giggled. “No Mom, baby turtles drop scute when they grow into big turtles, then you can collect it and make turtle shell helmets. They’re cool because they let you breathe underwater a bit longer. Plus, you can enchant them with...um. I forgot the name. But there’s an enchantment that helps you breathe longer, too.” “And one for mining underwater,” Jack added. “Why would you need that?” Dad asked. “Can’t you just mine like normal?” Jack shook his head. “Have you ever tried to swing a pickaxe underwater?” Dad blinked. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Sorry to dredge that up.” He wiggled his eyebrows. Mom was about to give Dad ‘The Look’ but Kate beat her to it. “No Dad, Jack already did a bunch of jokes.” “What?” Dad looked offended. “I’m supposed to do the Dad jokes!” “You are,” Jack said. “That’s why I did Jack Jokes.” Dad snorted out a laugh. “Were they punny?” Jack grinned. “Definitely. They worked great for our new villager friends when they helped us on the farm. They were real ice-breakers.” Dad laughed extra loud. “That’s it, I’m done!” Kate said. “Come on Mom, let’s go get some turtle scute.” “I’m right there with you girl. Let’s go.” Dad waved. “We’ll make sure we have shelter, and we’ll give it a nice outfit.” Dad winked. Jack cocked his head. “What does a house wear?” Dad grinned. “Address!” Jack laughed, and the girls rolled their eyes. “We’ll make sure not to build a house like a penguin though. They just igloo them together.” Kate and Mom groaned and hurried off towards the turtles. “Don’t run in front of a car!” Jack yelled. “You might get tired!” “Run faster, Mom,” Kate yelled. Dad and Jack laughed at their fleeing forms. Chapter 18 By the time Mom and Kate came back from their turtle excursion, Dad and Jack had fixed up a house

The gleaming orange and silver express slid to a stop beside them. Tiger barged his way on board. Bond waited politely for two or three women to precede him. When he sat down beside Tiger, Tiger hissed angrily, "First lesson, Bondo-san! Do not make way for women. Push them, trample them down. Women have no priority in this country. You may be polite to very old men, but to no one else. Is that understood?" "Yes, master," said Bond sarcastically. "And do not make Western-style jokes while you are my pupil. We are engaged on a serious mission." "Oh, all right, Tiger," said Bond resignedly. "But damn it all..." Tiger held up a hand. "And that is another thing. No swearing, please. There are no swearwords in the Japanese language and the usage of bad language does not exist." "But good heavens, Tiger! No self-respecting man could get through the day without his battery of four-letter words to cope with the roughage of life and let off steam. If you're late for a vital appointment with your superiors, and you find that you've left all your papers at home, surely you say, well, Freddie Uncle Charlie Katie, if I may put it so as not to offend." "No," said Tiger. "I would say 'Shimata', which means 'I have made a mistake.'" "Nothing worse?" "There is nothing worse to say." "Well, supposing it was your driver's fault that the papers had been forgotten. Wouldn't you curse him backwards and sideways?" "If I wanted to get myself a new driver, I might conceivably call him 'bakyaro' which means a 'bloody fool', or even 'konchikisho' which means 'you animal'. But these are deadly insults and he would be within his rights to strike me. He would certainly get out of the car and walk away." "And those are the worst words in the Japanese language! What about your taboos? The Emperor, your ancestors, all these gods? Don't you ever wish them in hell, or worse?" "No. That would have no meaning." "Well then, dirty words. Sex words?" "There are two--'chimbo' which is masculine and 'monko' which is feminine. These are nothing but coarse anatomical descriptions. They have no meaning as swearing words. There are no such things in our language." "Well I'm...I mean, well I'm astonished. A violent people without a violent language! I must write a learned paper on this. No wonder you have nothing left but to commit suicide when you fail an exam, or cut your girlfriend's head off when she annoys you." Tiger laughed. "We generally push them under trams or trains." "Well, for my money, you'd do much better to say 'You-------'," Bond fired off the hackneyed string, "and get it off your chest that way." "That is enough, Bondo-san," said Tiger patiently. "The subject is now closed. But you will kindly refrain both from using these words or looking them. Be calm, stoical, impassive. Do not show anger. Smile at misfortune. If you sprain your ankle, laugh.

I believe we all need to think about the power and impact of our words on others. Words are not 'just words', and whilst laughter can often be an important and powerful release, we have to consider how our humour is impacting on all those who are listening, and then decide just how much we give a fuck about whether we offend them or not. After all, some listeners might still be idiots.

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.

Poor Bunny. He never would own up to being drunk; he'd always say he had a headache or needed to bet the prescription for his glasses readjusted. He was like that about a lot of things, actually. One morning after he'd had a date with Marion, he showed up at breakfast with his tray full of milk and sugar doughnuts and when he sat down I saw that there was a big purple hickey on his neck above the collar. "How'd you get that, Bun?" I asked him. I was only joking but he was very offended. "Fell down some stairs," he said brusquely, and ate his doughnuts in silence.

Sometimes when people get offended by my jokes, I say, "Bro, Joke has OK in it, so it's ok.

You often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each others jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes - maybe they mean, often they do not.

ALAN TAYLOR (Director) I wasn't going to mention that because I got in trouble the last time I mentioned it. We didn't have enough heads. We had to use every head we had. [Bush's head] had been made for some comedy. Se we had to use it. I remember making some not-very-brilliant joke at the time, like, "You go to production with the heads you have, not the heads you want"--paraphrasing [Bush's secretary of defense] Donald Rumsfeld--because I was pretty angry at Bush and Rumsfeld at the time. I thought it was funny. Since then I've realized if someone made a joke like that about a president I believed in, I would have been offended too. I think I've probably mellowed a bit, though if you gave me the chance to use [Trump's] head I'd probably jump at it.

You often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other's jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste of clothes-- maybe they mean it, often they do not.

Levelers: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.” —Dolly Parton

and I have the personal promise of the Governor that never again will anybody be sent to the Sexual Offenders’ Wing of the Adult Correctional Institution for telling a joke!