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I’ve loved The Onion since I first heard of it in high school, but god DAMN if this isn’t one of their best articles in recent memory. They managed to tastefully make light of a recent tragedy, one I thought couldn’t yet be made fun of (except tastelessly by opportunistic, unfunny assholes utilizing shock appeal to get cheap laughs–hi, Beastly Rotter), by satirizing American jadedness. That’s *real *humor.
Thanks for the link =)
The Onion waited a little bit, then came out with a hilarious, very therapeutic issue after 9/11.
The Onion’s 9/11 coverage was better than any mainstream media source I’ve seen. They captured the confusion and frustration in a few silly articles, rather than embody it and act it out, like everyone else did. Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake
The Onion doesn’t just report the truth, it predicts it with startling accuracy. In fact, I’d go so far to say that this article is perhaps the best piece of journalism ever published. Should have won a retroactive award or two.
Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’
If you can read that without laughing or crying or both, you are a better person than I.
“We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two,” Bush said. “Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there’s much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation’s hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it.”
Holy shit. It’s as if they’d had a long hard look into the next eight years and wrote down as much of it as they could bear to transcribe.
Reading this in Aurora it comes across as kind of Somber. Plus there is no county Sheriff. The city of Aurora is in three counties. Adams, Douglas and Arapahoe counties… Not to knock them, but it was one thing that acted like a speed bump to me when I was reading it.
Except it’s not satirizing American jadedness. It’s satirizing the packaged manner in which the media narrates and serves up a reaction, which we readily lap up, along with all our other favorite TV shows. It’s not jaded at all–everything is drama for consumption in an equalized way. It’s just that we don’t differentiate.
And why should we? How many here on this board have any direct connection to the people involved with that? The first thing that happens is stuff like “A friend of my brother had a chiropractor who once lived next to that movie theater!!! OMG!!!” It’s not that different from talking about the characters in our TV shows as if they were real people.
No joke: My close friend in Australia has friends in Aurora who were in the cinema next door as it happened.
A regular poster on another message board I participate in lost a cousin. The young woman went to the show with ten friends, all of whom survived.
I used to play Warcraft 3 years ago with this guy who lives in Colorado. Well we really didn’t play much together now that I think about it. And I haven’t seen him in years, or really talked to him for over a year now. No idea if he was anywhere near the shooting or knew anyone involved, but still. Really makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
On Saturday’s episode of Up with Chris Hayes one of his guests was Dave Cullen, the author of the new book Columbine. Writing it, he re-watched all the news reports, and saw how, over the course of a few hours, reporters moved from asking open-ended questions to asking only questions that fit a narrative. He said:
American Voices on the issue of gun sales increasing after the shooting.
My favorite:
Be warned: They could be wasting their time and money. I own two automatic rifles and three Glocks, and still no one has invited me to join a well-regulated militia.
I watch a TV show that is made by some guys in Colorado. I was so upset I couldn’t watch the show for two days.
Was that the “Amercans long to care about stupid shit again” piece?
THE MOST hilarious Onion ever was right after the 2000 election (Bush/Gore) 
To paraphrase an old saying, Link, or GTFO.
The hell, The Onion has a paywall now? That really sucks.