maarmie's musings

Thursday, March 30, 2006

(Not So) Funny Ha-Ha

Had a funny little run-in with Jeremy this morning over a March 29 post on his blog.

How I came to know of Jeremy's blog was through this comment he left on mine. Judging from the subtitle on my blog and the not-so-infrequent topic here, I thought he was poking fun at my blog, in general, and at me, in particular.

Without hesitation, I quickly fired off a harsh comment in defense of myself, my blog and victims of domestic violence everywhere. Then, more harsh words were exchanged between us via e-mail. The result? The consensus is that this whole ordeal sprang from little more than a very unfortunate coincidence.

My modified comment can be found on the offending post on Jeremy's blog along with Jeremy's response. While I agree with him about this world being "a clusterfuck of random indecency, senseless violence, and karmic injustice," I don't agree with his last thought:

"We can take control of it for a minute at a time by laughing about it."

I think we can attempt to mentally deal with atrocities through humor, but we can't take control of them through humor. Taking control of them comes only when we no longer sit down or keep quiet. Taking control of them comes only when we sacrifice and sweat, cry and bleed.

3 comments:

Jeremy QA Gibbens said...

To wit, my "taking control" meant exactly that...mentally coping. We never really will have true or full control of our lives.

Anonymous said...

[M]aarmie, you need to take a page from your own manual here and not take everything so seriously or personally. It is somewhat two-faced of you to tell people who get irritated with your blog not to take it so seriously and then be guilty of exactly that with someone else's blog [sorry for the run-on sentence].

That said, when I first read Jeremy's "well behaved women..." post I thought, WTF?!?!? But I just didn't make the connection to the more famous "well behaved women..." quote. Having been led to the connection, his post is certainly "in bounds" for an edgy, fuck-social-restraint type forum, which is exactly what blogs should be.

One could easily get all pissed and defensive about your constant male bashing if one didn't take your advice to not take things so seriously.

You have to be able to take jokes for what they are, even if they are on something you are passionate about. I (a self-described gun nut) can truly appreciate a good NRA joke. You'll know you're "getting better" when you can read this joke and not get mental:

What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing -- you already told her twice!

maarmie said...

Well, Mr. Kant, I didn't "get mental" when I read your joke or Jeremy's post. I simply don't appreciate humor about the topic. Never will. I think jokes about beating the shit out of women are a little different than jokes about gun control as well. And I have never advocated or joked about physically assaulting men.

But you're right. If I were to read a post like "Gag Me" written about women I'd instantly grow livid. I get mad when I read articles at askmen.com - both because of the text and because there are women out there who make the site's text accurate. Shitty people of any gender suck.

Thanks for the feedback!