Xref: utzoo news.misc:1940 soc.culture.jewish:8121 rec.humor.d:1123
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.misc,soc.culture.jewish,rec.humor.d
Subject: The EVIL Mr. Templeton responds
Message-ID: <2359@looking.UUCP>
Date: 19 Nov 88 08:36:38 GMT
References: <8011@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <17117@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <8016@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1211@fig.bbn.com>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 90

In <8011@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> richmond@athena.mit.edu writes
>I am having some friends in Waterloo do some investigations into
>Looking Glass Software, where Templeton works, their operations and their
>clients.  I am in the mood to take some "affirmative action" on this
>individual.

Hey, why investigate?  I'll tell you!  I own LGS, it's a software company.
(Somedays I suspect I spend more time processing jokes than developing code)

Our customers are everywhere, and they seem to like us.  Not wanting to
turn down an excuse for a plug, let me brag that our latest, the
"3-2-1 Blastoff" spreadsheet compiler, was picked by PC World as one of
the top microcomputer software products of 1988.  But enough about me... :-)

After my examinations of the various messages, and the good volume of
support mail I have received, I think this series of attacks upon me
is really the view of a very small minority.  Not that I'm paranoid.
I know everybody *thinks* I'm paranoid, but I'm not.  You think it, sure,
and I know you send secret messages around about how paranoid I am, but
really, I'm not.

What bothers me the most is the people who cry "racism" on jokes where
the true "ism" is to see race (or whatever) in the joke.

For example, the joke about "Run, Jesse, Run" bumper stickers on the front
bumper was a political joke about a candidate with some rather controversial
political policies.  The colour of his skin didn't even enter my mind
when I posted the joke, although I can see how some might find it there.
Too bad.

The joke about Liberace and John Turner(1) refers to AIDS.  Hate to tell you
this, folks, but AIDS doesn't care about sexual orientation when it hits
you.  If you equated an AIDS joke (or even an anal sex reference) with
homosexuality, that's your problem and not mine.

If you've made it this far, here's the hardest principle to understand.
With most of the extreme racist/sexist/etc.-ist jokes that I post, I find them
funny *becuase I am laughing at the extreme racism*.

I won't claim that everybody's like this, but my sense of humour includes
the ability to laugh at a joke for its sheer offensiveness.  For the
sheer audacity the joke has in crossing the barriers of polite society.
(Hyperbole is a central technique in humour, if you haven't noticed.)

It is the racism that is funny, not the race.

Now, I will freely admit that some people find these jokes funny for the
wrong reason, and usually their authors wrote them for the wrong reason.

If I see humour in 'em, I post 'em.  That's the rule and that's the way
it stays.

(Quick quiz for Matt Crawford:  This year I posted around 30 Bush/Quayle
jokes and around 3 Dukakis/Bentsen jokes.   What are my political leanings?
[Readers of can.politics & talk.politics.theory aren't allowed to answer.])

Finally, while I have noted my Russian-Jewish heritage before, I will admit
that I was exposed, in youth, to mild racist attitudes from my mother.  She
has always been a bit prejudiced against the German people for what they
did to the Jews, whom she considers "her people."   I guess my dad's not
perfect either, but he does take pride in the fact that he organized what
he feels was the first integrated public meeting south of the Mason-Dixon
line.

Got to go now.  I have to get my Klan uniform out of the dryer, or it will
get all wrinkled, and then, boy, will I look dumb.
======
(1)
  Ok, I admit I knew that all you uneducated Yankees(2) wouldn't get that joke.
It's only fair after I posted all those Quayle jokes into the rest of the
world, just to get comments of, "Huh?"

John Turner is the leader of the Liberal Party in Canada, trying to become
Prime Minister again in the election on Monday.  He vows to tear up the
Canada-US free trade agreement, so this election is probably the most
important Canadian election in U.S. history(3), if you get my drift.  Before
his popularity swung up due to the debates, Turner was about to be done
in by his own party for doing so badly in the election.

(2)
  That was a real racial slur.

(3)
  Did you know that the USA does more trade with Ontario than with Japan
or Germany?  If you didn't, then (2) wasn't a slur.(4)

(4)
  If you did know, then (3) was a slur as well.  The dryer's still buzzing.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473