So remember that decision by the Washington Post to start a humor blog? This thing now exists. We have seen this thing. And, umm:
Sometimes I think that the area I am living in is not dangerous enough, so I run outdoors and paint a mural. Little-known fact: the more murals a neighborhood has, the less safe it is. Walking past an actual mugging scares me less than coming down a dark alley late at night and seeing a mural entitled The Triumph of the Human Spirit. That tells you that you are probably not going to make it out of there intact.
Do you understand this funny joke? Poor minority people like to paint murals in their neighborhood depicting civil rights leaders and their shared sense of community and their hope for a better neighborhood. But, haha, those stupid poor people probably don’t understand that they can never stop their side of the tracks from being A VERY SCARY MURDER PLACE in which young, white, Hasty Pudding types from the Post would never step foot. Jooooooookes!
(By the way, this Alexandra Petri person set up a fan page for herself on Facebook! You should totally join it! Unless you are a poor person or believe in silly things like community empowerment or hope.) [WP]
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Um. So painting a mural = name a street MLK? Live and learn
Who the fuck does this goofy looking white twat think she is? God knows if there is anything this world needs more of it is jokes bashing poor people trying to improve their ignored communities, right people? Ugh.
PS – Chris Rock called, he wants his fucking joke back, you idiot.
I was going to go with a simple "Fuck her" but yours is much better.
you can take that to the Banksy
Dear Washington Post,
Humor is a funny thing – seriously.
"Still, they say most people know their killers. That's why I keep refusing to add "Heart Disease" as a friend on Facebook."
OMG MEGA LOLZ!
I don't know what's funnier — the mocking of high-crime areas, the Mark Trail cadence of her writing, or the fact that she spent a whole column dancing around her fear of the inner city without saying "black" even once. Oh, I know — that I read three-quarters of that thing before giving up the vain hope that it would suddenly turn good.
Don't pick on St Louis, you silly, spoiled cunt. You don't know anything about it. Random thoughts about whatever is on your mind at the moment belong in the comments on blogs, not in blogs themselves.
Jesus, the Washington Post will pay money for anything. Kaplan University and Student Loan Gobbler must have to sink some profits so their balance sheet doesn't look like they are raping their students/customers/suckers, which they are.
Yes, why ARE those minorities wasting their time painting uplifting murals when they could be struggling to pay back Kaplan-sponsored edumacation loans?
This is why we can't have nice things. Whoever ended up inventing or making blogs popular should be publically executed.
Petri? As in container of goo festering with bacteria? How apt.
I thought she was related to Rob and Laura, actually.
No. Rob Petri wrote funny things for a living. Her job is different.
The funny skips a generation in the Petri family.
And that's Pee Tree…
No relation.
POSSIBLE SECOND CAREER FOR ALEXANDRA PETRI – ARCHIE COMICS WRITER:
Jughead: "I can't believe Mr. Weatherbee was black and tried to kill you."
Archie: "You know they say most people know their killers."
Jughead: "That's why I keep refusing to add "Heart Disease" as a friend on Facebook."
Barring that, maybe the Bazooka Joe wrappers.
Sadly, this person also wrote "humor' for the Harvard Crimson, and fairly recently. I wish she could exercise her sense of entitlement by double-parking her Lexus in front of Whole Foods or dinging our shins with a Bugaboo, like a normal Ivy League princess.
Wow–it's like a Dave Barry column written by David Broder!
And with the thought process of Peggy Noonan, who's seemingly always out on random (Ambien-induced) evening walks.
Mayhaps, this Petri lady was out looking for dope, which many a nice, little white womn is wont to do in an urban area? That, or they send their significant others out like Chinese take-out.
Ha, ha! So even urban graffiti is an affront and outrage! And MLK and Malcolm X are just characters from a old storybook; who shouldn't be exposed to the community they fought for (they actually fought for all humans who are downtrodden) but remain in history texts.
Unless you live in Texas and then they don't appear in history or any other texts.
Who's this *Mr. Schuester* who's supposed to be teaching criminals? Is the idea here that it's a Jewish/Black conspiracy? Hey, Petri, what about the Mafia? Are you stereotyping or what?
I don't think she's written anything yet that was a) funny b) not incredibly facile.
the washington post: if you don't get it, you don't get it.
those fuckers are the fingers on the pulse of urban living.
More than the dubious subject matter, I was offended by the meandering. It seems as if after every paragraph, she was distracted by something shiny, and lost her train of thought and just picked back up wherever she thought appropriate.
I have to say, the last line was a killer, but of the statistical type as she'd call it, not the stabby/shooty type of killer.
She's gonna flip her shit if she ever runs across a Banksy.
Apparently, using exclamation points makes things funny! See! Seriously!
Alexandra Petri has cancer and gay AIDS!
OMGLOL! It does work!
Somebody needs to re-enroll in Chattering Class. "Stuef & Wags' Elements Of Snark" might be good supplemental reading.
Wapo already has a humor column. Does Richard Cohen know abut this?
I clicked on the link and nothing comes up except the WaPo masthead. From what you described, it sounds like they have significantly upgraded their content.
Comments were closed on her Facebook page due to AIDS so I reported her for hate speech since apparently she can't take the heat for the hateful and classist crap she writes
Murals a little too Spanish for me, also. Wall-art, please.
/my country
//taken back
I was going to bitch about how alleged professional writers never seem to know that the word they are looking for is "titled" not "entitled," but in this case maybe I should just chalk it up to a Freudian slip or something of that nature.
Nuh-uh. According to Webster's and the Oxford, either one is OK. I always thought "a book entitled X" was correct and "titled" was just its lazy, modern stepsibling. But apparently we're both wrong and you can swing either way. You'll just have to hate la Petri for one of the many other reasons discussed here!
I refuse to believe that is true. You can't use "entitled" before the name of a work. Every time you do a crusty grammarian cries bitter, Scotch-and-nicotine-tinged tears.
("Titled" isn't lazy shorthand. It's a word that means "the name of something," where "entitled" means "has a claim to something" and in some cases can mean "conferring title upon a person," like in the sentence "Sarah Palin entitled Sir Todd of the Snow Machines during last night's sexytime.")
I swear I don't usually care about internet grammar nonsense at all, but this one is my biggest pet peeve in the grammar world and I hate seeing it in professional writing. Also, even if it is accepted as okay by Webster's & Oxford, AP style dictates "titled" always so she's still a terrible monster for this and many, many other reasons.
Okay. I'll just go back to enjoying the taste of those bitter, boozy tears now.
I sympathise, I really do. (I live in Australia where we use British spelling. Mostly.) You sound like a kindred spirit. I recently had the traumatic experience of discovering that what I thought I knew (and prided myself on knowing) about when to write 'practise' and when 'practice' (depending on meaning and part of speech and differing US and British, ahem, practice) was, in fact, completely wrong. Your delineation above of the differences in meaning between the two words is entirely logical — but, I fear, incorrect, at least in this part of the world. If you were a bit closer, I feel we could have an enjoyable debate over a dram or two of Highland Park, but I will have to pour you a virtual one instead. Slainte!
"I feel we could have an enjoyable debate over a dram or two of Highland Park, but I will have to pour you a virtual one instead. Slainte!"
I agree. In the words of my grandpa, God rest his soul, "Here's to youse!"
Wow. This just goes to show if you can be unfunny at Harvard, you can basically write your own ticket to go on to be unfunny anywhere.
The Technology Gods of Poor Murals are smiting her.
Linky
Do you know what's even scarier?
When you're walking down a dark street and, OMG, EVERYONE IS TAP-DANCING!
Now, I think you'll agree: My two sentences constitute true and epic humor writing. Try and suppress your gales of laughter. You cannot.
This is how a career that ends with a "nappy headed hos" comment starts.
Silly blacks, everyone knows that you can only honor your leaders by putting their likenesses on currency
I can't wait for Norm MacDonald's turn at her roast.
Apparently, the appropriate response to racism is misogyny. Way to go, readers.
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