dead baby jokes!, sick, yet hilarious Options

[timeflies51]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I love dead baby jokes.

Here's a huge list: http://www.dead-baby-jokes.com

Post your favorites!



Here are the classics:


What's worse than ten dead babies in one trash can?

One dead baby in ten trash cans!


What's the difference between twenty dead babies and a car?

I don't have a car in my garage.


How many dead babies does it take to paint a house?

Depends on how hard you throw them.




(BTW: I wouldn't actually do anything of these things to a baby, I just happen to have a sick sense of humor...)

[creole]

Dear Reader:

Given the nature of the "evidence" — namely tabloid-style scaremongering and unsourced photos circulating on the Internet — we must proceed under the assumption that the Chinese as a people, whether on the mainland or in Taiwan, are no more inclined to eat human babies than folks who live anywhere else in the world. The burden of proof lies with those who claim otherwise.

The same holds true for Gypsies, Jews, Christians, witches, aborigines, Satanists, or any of the other ethnic or religious groups alleged to practice this heinous custom down through the centuries. There is simply no proof that such a practice exists, or has ever existed, anywhere on earth.

Prejudice and blood libel

The claim that eating babies or fetuses is a common and accepted practice in China (or Thailand, Japan, Korea, or Israel, etc.) is essentially a modern version of an ancient form of prejudice known as "blood libel" — one group accusing another of murdering infants during the course of ritual sacrifices. According to the Greeks, the Jews did it; according to the Romans, the Christians did it; according to the Christians, it really was the Jews who did it; and so on since time immemorial.

Sociologists say the driving forces behind such bigotry are ignorance, xenophobia (fear of "the other"), and psychological projection (attributing perceived moral failings of one's own group to others). As an example of the latter, it has been speculated that the spread of horror stories in the West about the supposed use of unborn babies as food in Asia may be fueled by qualms about social practices closer to home — practices such as abortion, for example, and the so-called "cannibalization" of fetal tissue for scientific research.

'Cannibalism' as art

In any case, it is difficult to tell — and under dispute — whether photographs circulating online since December 2000 showing an Asian man apparently cooking and eating a human fetus are real or fake. We do know, thanks to documentation on Chinese-Art.com, that they were the work of a conceptual artist named Zhu Yu. The photos were exhibited at an underground art show after being rejected as "too controversial" by curators of the Shanghai 2000 Bienniale. For those who haven't seen them and aren't too squeamish to take a peek, here are two examples from Zhu's postmodern performance piece, aptly titled "Eating People," collected from forwarded emails:

* Zhu Yu "Eating People" #1
* Zhu Yu "Eating People" #2

The artist himself, whose past accomplishments include an opus called "Canned Human Brains," has claimed in interviews that he used real aborted fetuses stolen from a medical school to create the piece, and that he actually cooked and ate the fetuses "for art's sake."

Should we take him at his word? Not necessarily.

Doll parts?

It is true — to the point of being a cliche, in fact — that avant-garde artists will say and do practically anything to shock their audiences, so we are obliged to acknowledge the possibility that Zhu Yu is telling the truth — that he really did cook and eat human fetuses in front of a camera. On the other hand, "performance art" is often strictly that — a performance — and it has been argued that Zhu could have constructed his "fetuses" out of doll parts and animal carcasses, pretended to consume them in front of a camera, and issued tongue-in-cheek statements to the press claiming he ate human flesh.

That is a theory I'm inclined to agree with, frankly, because if Zhu's claims were factual he'd probably be serving jail time right now. There is no reason to suppose the government of China is any more tolerant of cannibalism than governments anywhere else, and the fact that Zhu's work was rejected from an official exhibition bears that out. By his own "admission," the fetuses Zhu allegedly cooked and ate were obtained illegally, thus if he is telling the truth he could be prosecuted as an accomplice in that crime, as well.

Officials demand retraction

In early 2001, a Malaysian tabloid published several of the photos in conjunction with a story alleging that the signature dish of a particular Taiwanese restaurant contains the "meat" of human infants. Taiwan government officials immediately demanded a retraction — a de facto confirmation that baby eating is not particularly well-accepted by the Chinese.

Shortly afterward, the same pictures turned up on a prominent Website specializing in tasteless content (www.rotten.com), prompting reports in the British press that Scotland Yard and the FBI were investigating their origins. The owner of said Website maintains he has never been contacted by authorities from any country, however. When last I looked (August 2001), the photos were still on display there.