I wasn't _offended_ by your critique of the butt joke thread, but I did
think it was a bit too earnest, to be perfectly frank. Frequently, people
will post messages to this and other writing/rhetoric groups that amount to
"dumb stuff my students did," and frequently, someone responds with
something along the lines of "hey, we shouldn't make fun of our students--
that's mean and insensitive," etc., etc. My mom is a hospice nurse--
meaning she helps terminally ill patients through the last days of their
lives, a pretty serious and solemn business. You should hear some of the
gallows humor these folks have about their patients! These jokes, like our
recent butt jokes thread, shouldn't be read as evidence that we are
insenstive louts, but just the opposite.
Personally, I think it's probably a good thing for us not to be so damned
earnest all the time, and the recent Carter/Rickly addition is the perfect
reason why: there is more to life than thinking about whether or not
critical theory texts are potentially not "butt ugly." I'm looking forward
to going up to a computer at school today where I can view the new young
person on the WWW in full color splendor; in the meantime, I add my
congrats to the list.
So I for one hope that we can not only keep debating the intellectual and
academic issues that interest us as a community, but also share some
personal news and joys and also (occassionally) some butt (and other types
of) jokes. In fact, I feel the need to go find a 3rd or 4th grader to learn
some new butt jokes right now...
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Steve Krause * Department of English * Southern Oregon State College
1250 Siskiyou Blvd. * Ashland, OR 97520 * Office Phone: 541-552-6630
School e-mail: krause@wpo.sosc.osshe.edu * Personal e-mail: krause@mind.net
WWW: http://www.sosc.osshe.edu/English/Krause
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