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From: allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM (Allen Gwinn)
Newsgroups: news.misc,soc.culture.jewish
Subject: How Many (x) Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?
Summary: Warning: sensitive to the overly sensitive
Keywords: sensitivity, sensationalism
Message-ID: <358@sulaco.Sigma.COM>
Date: 20 Nov 88 16:22:53 GMT
Organization: SULACO, Dallas, TX
Lines: 49

Q: How Many (x) Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?
A: They don't... they just sit in the dark and suffer.

If you replace 'x' with your particular ethnic/political/racial/religious
group (or anything else for that matter), does that simple riddle have some
glint of truth to it?  Why does it offend some people in 'x' when there
is a joke posted... not with the intent to harm or belittle, but with
the sole attempt at giving someone a good laugh?

The best friends that my wife and I have are a Jewish couple.  He is in
a similar profession to mine (however we first met on the radio... we are
both hams).  I introduced him to his wife (who was and still is Jewish).
We're always joking around as to what would be the "proper Jewish way" 
to approach a buying/selling situation.  Recently, Louis and I flew
in a Cessna 152 from Dallas to San Antonio (both of us on business...
different companies, same place... pilots dream of splitting expenses
like this :-)   We were leaving the hotel to go down to the Riverwalk
to get a bite to eat the night that we got in.  As we were walking out 
the front door, either one of us kicked a coin laying on the dark sidewalk,
or one of us dropped some change (I don't know).  Louis grabbed me by
the shirt collar and exclaimed "you realize that neither one of us can
leave this spot until we find it!"  We laughed and walked on to dinner.

Now who out there is going to brand him and me 'antisemitic'?  What's 
wrong with a little casual humor now and then?  I'm a computer programmer.
Somehow, someway, we seem to have gotten a reputation for always wearing
pocket protectors (??? how did this happen?  I apologize to those who
are now ripping their pocket protectors off and throwing them in the
garbage :-)   I now make it a point to find and wear a pocket protector
to dinner, Fridays, with my parents (my Dad's a lawyer... yes... he
gets told every lawyer joke I can get my hands on... by the way, if
anybody has any others that haven't been posted recently, please email
them... I'm running out :-(  ).

The point to my whole article is when humor and the ability to laugh
at one's self cease to exist, culture ceases to exist right along
with it.  I agree that as with anything, there can be a certain amount
of excessiveness at times (but I haven't seen anything I consider
to be such, yet, on the net).  When you start looking for things to
offend you, you will always find something.  Then its YOU who is
becomming the prejudiced one... always trying to find the underlying
way that someone not in 'x' is trying to secretly degrade and humiliate
you.

So, are you going to change it? ...or just sit in the dark and suffer?

-- 
Allen Gwinn  ...sulaco!allen        Disclaimer: The facts stated are my own.
"...I will not waste time proving this." - Hank Bovis