HOAX NO LAUGHING MATTER

I guess I'm the ONLY ONE who is relieved it was a hoax - that no US soldier was kidnapped and threatened with beheading - and finds that LAUGHING about it - and coming up with other potential hoaxes, (as the blogfather INSTAPUNDIT did and as the usually sober and BRILLIANT Powerline did - and many other bloggers - did, too), IS IN VERY BAD TASTE!

Must I remind the blogosphere that the neojihadists still hold hostages, and they HAVE BEHEADED dozens and dozens of REAL PEOPLE, including Daniel Pearl.

Making light of them and their ruthless practices demeans the people they've already murdered and those they currently hold - and those who serve in harms way AND MIGHT BE TAKEN HOSTAGE.

I suggest that those who think it's funny (and suggest in their blogs that we'll next see claims of Mr. Bill or BERT & ERNIE or Miss Piggy taken hostage) - should volunteer to take the place of a current hostage!

SHAME ON YOU ALL WHO MAKE LIGHT OF THIS.

The hoax was crude and cruel; making light of it it bad form, too.

UPDATE:

LOOK: I think it's GREAT to have a sense of humor about things - BUT as long as there are hostages whose lives are threatened by ruthless thugs (who HAVE BEHEADED people), we shouldn't make light of it.

It crosses the line for me, a line between good taste and bad taste.

I think if someone made jokes about the people who jumped out of the WTC it would also be in bad taste... (like maybe someone could write a joke about how the jumpers were pyrophobes who weren't not afraid of heights); NOT FUNNY! Neither would I find it funny or in good taste to make jokes about abortion.

It'd be better - in better taste - to make fun of our enemies, and not the victims of our enemies.

UDPATE #2 - BOTTOM-LINE: I guess I am disappointed in the pro-war side for making light of this hoax. I expect this kind of sick humor from the DU, not us!

JOKING ABOUT HOSTAGE-TAKING REMINDS ME OF WOLCOTT'S ASININE PRO-HURRICANE COMMENTS: its cruel snarkiness is in bad taste!

UPDATE #3 - TWO QUESTIONS: If it was a USA teen prankster making a sick joke (and who hacked the hoax onto the jihadist web-site) and NOT a jihadist who posted the hoax, then who are you making fun of by "piling on" with the doll/hoax jokes? And at who's expense, the jihadists or the families of hostages? Maybe Iraqi kidnappers get paid a bounty by the neojihadists, and they have to post a vidoe of their victims in order to collect, and maybe a kidnapper posted this hoax to collect a bounty he hadn't "earned?"

It matters not - not to me, at least. WHY?!

Because there ARE families out there who have had their loved one's head savagely cut off.

And there are other families out there with loved ones who are now hostages.

And there are families out there who have loved ones in harms way RIGHT NOW - fighting in Iraq or working on reconstruction projects there. They are all potential hostages.

I would rather NOT laugh than say something that would hurt these familes or make light of their plight or potential plight.

Obviously I'm in the minority - most pundits are piling on, and commenters at various threads are generally saying I should "lighten up." Maybe, I should. But, there certian things I will not make fun of. A cheap little laugh is not worth hurting people whose loved ones have been slaughtered by the ruthless enemy we are fighting, or whose loved ones are in danger because they are in the front lines.

And we also should keep in mind that right here in the USA a family of four Egyptian Copts were SLAUGHTERED by our neojihadist enemies. So all of us here in the USA - especially bloggers who favor fighting back - should remember: the next hostage might be someone we know, someone we love, or even US.

I don't think that's funny. It's a sick joke, in bad taste, and it ain't funny.

UPDATE #4: A great and leading blogger - Jayson Javitz of POLITICAL VICE SQUAD (and the fabulous blog Polipundit) - wrote me, defending the "jokes about the hoax;" he wrote that - "It's not to make a political statement, in and of itself, it's just twisted irony."

I think he's RIGHT! That's the "why," at least. Nobody thinks their hurting anyone by joking about hostages (except maybe the people who deserve it - like the neojihadists). The BRILLIANT Betsy Newmark of Betsy's Page said the same thing on a short thread at her great blog.

Yet, I will not budge. I guess that makes me a middle-brow with high-brow leanings - someone who enjoys battling the seemingly never-ending downward spiral in pop discourse; the idea that when it comes to humor "anything goes!"

I'm battling windmills, in a way - I know - but I think people should think before they crack the easy - and sometimes inadvertently mean or hurtful rejoinder. And maybe I've done that, a little, by posting on the "jokes about the hoax."

In other words: I'm more a fan of (and miss) Johnny Carson's thoughtful and warm humor and regret the "Letterman-ish snideness" and the general snarkiness that passes for humor these days. Especially on issues of such public import as the GWOT. But Lettermen is very popular - as is snarkiness in the blogospere. I don't mind sayng: I don't like that kind of humor one bit - even of it does little good and makes many people think I need to "lighten up." What's right is right. What's in bad taste - is in bad taste. Popular, or not. PERIOD.