Mocking

Journalist Simone Ellin, editor of Baltimore Jewish Living magazine Jmore, endured relentless bullying in high school, resulting in “low-grade depression, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy and underachievement that have persisted despite years of therapy.” Decades later, she decided to reconnect with her former classmates—bullies, bystanders, and fellow victims alike.

Through social media, Ellin easily found many of these women, who were surprisingly willing to share their stories. One former bully, reached via Facebook, called and tearfully confessed: “I’m so sorry. I swear I’m not a bad person. I think about what I did to you all the time. I don’t know why I chose you. I had a miserable home life.” Hearing her classmate’s trauma firsthand, Ellin was finally able to forgive her, and hoped the woman could forgive herself, too.

Ellin discovered that even the “popular” girls suffered. “I was surprised to learn that many of the 'popular' girls paid a steep price for maintaining their social standing,” she wrote. One former cheerleader admitted, “The girls in her clique were so mean to each other that she grew up distrusting other women. 'I didn’t have a real female friend until I was 43.'”

Another woman, once bullied, became a bully herself: “I had no way to stand up for myself... I became a bully, and I would kick them with my clogs. I got suspended and I remember thinking, Now I’m the strong one.”

Ellin also reflected on her own actions, regretting times she gossiped or shunned others. “This was crystallized for me when a couple of women I interviewed mentioned that they felt 'invisible' in school.”

Ultimately, Ellin’s project offered healing and perspective: “We can never really know what’s going on in other people’s lives... After decades of hurt and resentment, I now see them as they were—young girls experiencing their own trials and tribulations.”

A popular pizza chain known for its snarky ad campaigns has been forced to apologize after a sustained public outcry over its latest special. In early October, D.C.-based &Pizza (pronounced “And Pizza”) announced the addition of “Marion Berry Knots” to its dessert menu, referencing the late former mayor of the District of Columbia Marion Barry. The ads for the new product made extensive references to Barry’s drug use and public drug arrests (“so good, it’s almost a felony”).

Marion Barry was arrested in a drug sting in 1990 and was eventually convicted of a misdemeanor drug charge. After six months in prison, Barry was elected to the city council in 1992, and re-elected mayor in 1994. Despite his death in 2014, the memory of Barry, the district’s first African American mayor, still looms large over residents of Washington, a city with a sizable African American population.

The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), called the ad campaign “inflammatory, and culturally-insensitive,” calling for its removal. The organization also challenged &Pizza to donate to organizations doing substance abuse prevention as a way to rectify the wrong.

“Candidly, we made a mistake," said &pizza CEO Mike Burns in a statement. “And for that, we sincerely apologize.”

Legal representatives for Barry’s widow Cora Masters Barry and the Barry estate called the apology insufficient, issuing a cease-and-desist notice request that &Pizza refrain from profiting from Barry’s name, image, or likeness.

D.C. restaurant owner Peyton Sherwood said:

Barry’s life was about opportunity, dignity, and equality for everyone in Washington, D.C. To reduce that legacy to a crass ad about his darkest moments is not only offensive it’s cruel. It disregards the immense good Barry did for this city and the battles he fought on behalf of all its people.

Possible Preaching Angle:

A person is more than their failures. Every person is a mixture of good and bad, failures, and successes. We should always look to remove anything in our own eye before we try to remove the speck in other’s eyes (Matt. 7:1-5), even if done in jest.

Because the British royal family lives under constant media scrutiny, it’s usual for any member of the family to stay out of the limelight for an extended period. So, when Catherine of Wales hadn’t been seen in public for months, and her Mother’s Day photo was scrutinized as possibly being doctored, conspiracy theories began to proliferate.

All these theories proved to be irresistible for online jokesters. “Perhaps Kate Middleton had been using a body double, or was in a coma, or was engaged in an illicit tryst,” people speculated online. Even American late night comedy hosts were getting in on the action.

But it turns out the truth was much less exciting, and much scarier: Kate Middleton was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a form of cancer.

For many people, this news created a regretful reckoning. A 58-year-old woman named Dana spoke to reporters at The Washington Post about this. Dana had been joking with her friends about the Kate Middleton rumors; when she heard the truth, she was filled regret. She said, “This woman’s sick and afraid. And I just lost my mom to cancer. I am devastated at my inhumanity.”

Many of the online entertainment personalities simply ceased joking and moved on to other targets, but CBS’ late-night host took an extra step, apologizing during a segment of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He said:

There’s a standard that I try to hold myself to. And that is I do not make light of somebody else’s tragedy. Any cancer diagnosis is harrowing for the patient and for their family. Though I’m sure they don’t need it from me, I and everyone here at The Late Show would like to extend our well wishes and heartfelt hope that her recovery is swift and thorough.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Telling jokes can be a great way to bring levity to your friends, but take care that your jokes do not veer into harassment or defamation of character.

Jeopardy fans were furious after the contestants on an episode failed to answer a “simple” question about the Lord's Prayer during the game. Players Joe, Laura, and Suresh were unable to give the correct answer to former host Mayim Bialik's question about filling in the blank: “Matthew 6:9 says, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven, ____ be thy name,’" Bialik said. The group made an error of biblical proportions by not even attempting to guess the correct answer as the stage remained silent until Bialik gave the answer.

But the saddest thing happened over the next day or two on X. Jeopardy fans and lots of former or current church-going people started piling on with anger and shock at the contestants' inability to answer the question. Here are some of the posts:

“That’s ‘hallowed,’ you heathens!”

“Hey, Jeopardy geniuses … It's HALLOWED. Sheesh, what a sad world we live in.”

“OOF. Watching @Jeopardy tonight, and none of the contestants knew the words 'hallowed be thy name' in the Lord's Prayer,” one user lamented.

“You gotta be kidding me no one knew ‘hallowed.’”

“Screaming Hallowed! They didn't know the ‘Our Father.’ #Jeopardy,” wrote another.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Condemnation; Mocking - Rather than mock and condemn, it would have been much more fruitful to gently instruct those who don’t know the content, context, or relevance of the Lord’s Prayer. 2) Bible; Morality; Knowledge - Is it any wonder that the world is in the moral state that it is? People are perishing and being misled because of an ignorance of God’s Word (Hos. 4:6).

Of all the helping professions, police work seems the most suited to a dark, sardonic disposition often referred to as gallows humor. It’s the byproduct of being subject to crime, degradation, and violence on a day-to-day basis. Still, the case of Seattle police officer Daniel Auderer should help officers reflect on the consequences of their words, especially when they’re caught on camera.

Auderer’s bodycam footage recorded him joking with another officer while discussing the death of a pedestrian. SPD officer Kevin Dave had been driving over 70 miles per hour in his police vehicle while responding to an overdose call when his car struck and killed 26-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula in a crosswalk. Auderer had been summoned to evaluate whether Dave had been impaired at the time of the accident. Auderer was recorded saying that the city should “just write a check,” and implied that eleven thousand dollars would suffice, because, “she was 26, anyway … she had limited value.”

Auderer later wrote in a statement to the city’s Office of Police Accountability, "I intended the comment as a mockery of lawyers. I laughed at the ridiculousness of how these incidents are litigated and the ridiculousness of how I watched these incidents play out as two parties bargain over a tragedy."

Auderer admitted that anyone listening to his side of the conversation alone "would rightfully believe I was being insensitive to the loss of human life." The comment was "not made with malice or a hard heart," he said, but "quite the opposite." Still, police watchdog groups were not satisfied with the explanation, and several demanded Auderer be suspended without pay.

At the time of her death, Kandula was a student enrolled in the information systems program at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus. After her death, her uncle Ashok Mandula arranged to send her body to her mother in India. Mandula said, "The family has nothing to say. Except I wonder if these men's daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life."

Shayden Walker didn’t know what was waiting for him on the other side of his neighbor’s doorbell. All he knew was he needed some help. "I was wanting to see if you knew any kids around 11 or 12 maybe,” said Shayden, in footage caught on the neighbor’s doorbell camera. “Cause I need some friends real bad," explaining that he’d been bullied at school.

As it turns out, his neighbors in the Ray family didn’t have any kids his age. But one of them had a TikTok account, where they posted the video of their encounter with Shayden. It went viral, being viewed over six million times.

Shayden’s mother, Krishna Patterson said, "He's been hospitalized because the bullying was so bad and he felt so isolated.” Shayden said, “What my life was like before ... kids were manipulating me and (said) they would be my friend. But when they ask me to do something horrible, I don't feel like they're actually my friend.”

The Rays also set up a GoFundMe account for the boy, where they raised over $40,000, exceeding any expectations they might have had for finding help. Because of such generosity, Shayden will get to purchase some new clothes, a video game system, and tickets to an amusement park.

And Shayden’s mom has advice for anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation to the Ray’s. “If you see it [bullying], just advocate for that person. Just be there for that person. Do not let that person suffer," said Patterson.

Shayden himself has a message for anyone else who might be considering bullying behavior. “How would you like it if someone were to bully you? How would that make you feel?"

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Lord loves to answer the call of the afflicted, and does not leave the righteous forsaken.

When Rose Wakefield pulled into a gas station in a Portland suburb to purchase some gas nearly three years ago, she left feeling that she had been racially discriminated against. In late-January, 2023, a jury agreed in her favor. After successfully suing the corporations involved, Wakefield was awarded one million dollars in damages.

The damages were so high because the behavior Wakefield encountered was so egregious. This was not only from the gas station attendant who refused to pump her gas because he said he doesn’t serve Black people, but also from the representatives at the corporate complaint line who failed to take her report seriously.

During closing arguments, Wakefield’s attorney Greg Kafoury convinced the jury that a large judgment would force the corporate defendants to explain their failure to respond appropriately. This included failing to record Wakefield’s initial phone call (and subsequently deleting a follow up voicemail), and doctoring the employee personnel file to make it appear as though he was fired for different, unrelated conduct.

Her attorney added, “A cop who erased evidence would go to jail for it.”

When Romello Early saw that one of his classmates at Buffalo Creek Academy was being bullied because of his shoes, he was overcome with emotion. Bryant Brown, dean of culture at Buffalo Creek, said, "When you come to school, people look at your shoes before they even look at your face.”

But Early didn’t like that. And when his mother came home from work, he told her so. He said, “Mom, you can take away anything you're getting me for Christmas, or you could take my allowance, I just want to get him some shoes. Nobody deserves to get put down based on a pair of shoes that he's going to eventually grow out of.”

Early’s mom was so moved by her son’s compassion that she granted his request. And the next day, Early presented seventh-grader Melvin Anderson with a bright orange box with two brand new Nike shoes in his size. Early had purchased the shoes with $135 he’d already saved up. He said, “It made me feel happy to see that big smile on his face.”

When Brown saw Anderson smiling with his new box of shoes, and Early smiling right next to him, he felt moved to take a photo. The photo eventually went viral and inspired a ton of local goodwill. The two boys, their parents, and the school dean eventually did a segment on a local TV news affiliate. Both boys were surprised with a series of gifts, including local Buffalo Bills NFL swag, a Playstation 5, and of course, two more pairs of sneakers.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we operate in generosity we demonstrate the love of God, not only to those whom we bless directly but for a wider watching community.

In the days of the Russian revolution, the Soviet state tried to stamp out Christianity and convert everyone to atheism. A popular Russian comedian developed a stage act in which he played a drunken Orthodox priest. Dressed in wine-stained robes, he did a comic imitation of the ancient but beautiful liturgy.

Part of his performance was to chant the Beatitudes. But he used distorted words—such as “blessed are they who hunger and thirst for vodka” and “blessed are the cheese makers”—while struggling to remain more or less upright. He had done his act time and again and been rewarded by the authorities for his work in promoting atheism and in making worship seem ridiculous.

But on one occasion things didn’t go as planned. Instead of saying his garbled version of the Beatitudes in his well-rehearsed comic manner, he chanted the sentences as they are actually sung in a real Liturgy. His attention was focused not on the audience but on the life-giving words that were coming from the Bible, words he had learned and sung as a child. He listened to the memorized words and something happened in the depths of his soul.

After singing the final Beatitude, he fell to his knees weeping. He had to be led from the stage and never again parodied worship. Probably he was sent to a labor camp, but even so it’s a story of a happy moment in his life. He had begun a new life in a condition of spiritual freedom that no prison can take away. Whatever his fate, he brought the Beatitudes and his recovered faith with him. Truly, the Bible can change one’s life.

A kid was bullied at school because he pretended that the talk show host, Jay Leno, was his uncle. When Leno learned this, he tracked the kid down and drove him to school in his Lamborghini.

Jay Leno said:

I got a letter one day from a kid saying he was in trouble because he had told his friends that I was his uncle and that we would go driving around in my Lamborghini. And his friends all called him a big liar. He wanted to know if I could give him a ride to school one day in my Lamborghini Countach. It so intrigued me that I called the kid, of course speaking to his mother first, and said, why don't we do this next week?

So, I drove out to where the kid lived and picked him up. Then we waited until the opportune time, when most of the buses are in front of the school and all the kids are hanging out and we pull up in front, the doors go up into the sky, the kid goes, '’Bye uncle Jay!'’ And I go, '’OK, Billy, take care, I'll pick you up next week and we'll go driving.’ And of course, all his friends' mouths are hanging open. It was hysterical.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus promises to walk with us every step of our journey. He is caring about our problems and he promises to protect and guide us. We can proudly say, “The King of Kings is my big brother.”

What happened when a High School student used the N-word? It usually leads to expulsion. But it doesn’t have to. High school senior Rainier Harris tells of his experience as a Black student at Regis, an academically rigorous Catholic high school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Harris said:

I felt immense pride entering Regis, but also great pressure. ... I am no stranger to racist behavior. In middle school, I was targeted with it, as well as enduring classmates casually using the N-word. Any hope that this would be avoided at Regis was quickly proved wrong. Within the first two weeks there, a photo of me was shared around school by a white classmate; the caption referred to me as a monkey. At the end of my sophomore year, the school expelled a white student who … used the N-word with other white friends.

But when one of Rainier’s friends used the N-word in front of him on several occasions, the school took a different approach: restorative justice. This involves a collaboration between victim and offender. The process is uncomfortable and tedious for everyone involved, but it leads to a transformative result.

He concluded:

Administrators facilitated real dialogue between me and my main offender … We talked at length over his thought process, and he even sent me a message apologizing and telling me exactly what it was he did wrong and that my frustrations were valid. My former friend said, “I’m sorry, Rainier, I didn’t realize why what I said was wrong. I didn’t know it was racist.” It felt like progress, as if I actually made a difference in his life.

Tony Campolo tells of how he was a counselor at a junior high camp. He said he had never met meaner kids in his life. They focused on an unfortunate kid named Billy who had cerebral palsy. His brain was unable to exercise proper control over his body or speech. The kids called him "spastic." Billy would walk across the grounds of the camp in his disjointed manner, and the others would line up behind him, imitating his every movement. One day Billy asked one of the boys, "Which way is the craft shop?" The other boy twisted grotesquely, pointed a dozen different ways and said, "That way!" How could he be so cruel?

The meanness reached its lowest point when Billy's cabin had been assigned the morning devotions for those 150 kids. The boys voted for Billy to be the speaker. They knew he couldn't do it. They just wanted to get him up there so that they could mock him and laugh. Little Billy got up out of his seat and limped his way to the platform. You could hear the titters of mocking laughter. But that didn't stop the little guy. He took his place behind the rostrum and started to speak. It took him almost ten tortured minutes to say, "Je-sus loves meee! Je-Je-Je-sus loves meee! And I love Je-Je-Jesus." When he finished there was dead silence. I looked, and there were boys trembling and crying all over the place. A revival broke out in that camp and kids turned their lives over to Jesus. A host of boys committed their lives to Christian service.

Campolo wishes he had kept count of how many ministers he has met as he travels across the US who have told him how they gave their lives to Jesus because of the witness of a "spastic" kid named Billy. “If God could use him with all of his limitations, what makes you think that God can't use you to touch the lives other people? If God can transform the lives of people through the likes of little Billy, don't you dare tell me He can't do great things through you.”

In order to combat racism, the Good Humor Ice Cream company has decided to decommission the popular tune “Turkey in the Straw” from all of its ice cream trucks, and replace it with a new customized hip-hop track.

Minstrel songs were often played in ice cream parlors, which is how they became jingles on ice cream trucks. “Turkey in the Straw” was derived from a nineteenth century Irish fiddle tune, but it was popularized in the US through vocal renditions containing lyrics that would greatly offend a listener with today’s sensibilities. Traveling minstrel shows sang it as “Zip Coon” as far back as 1834. In 1916, another recording of the tune by Harry C. Browne became popular. Its title? “[N-word] Love a Watermelon, Ha! Ha! Ha!”

To come up with a replacement, Good Humor tapped Robert Fitzgerald Diggs of the famed NY collective The Wu-Tang Clan. In a press release, Diggs, who goes by the stage name RZA, explained his involvement:

I remember the days when I would hear that iconic ice cream truck jingle outside, and I would drop what I was doing to chase it down for a treat. When I learned about that song's problematic history this summer, I knew I had to get involved.

You can listen to the new tune here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians we need to be discerning about the inadvertent ways we might cause offense, and be willing to change our ways in order to communicate our values of love, peace and justice

When the Olympic Games of 1964 were held in Tokyo, Sri Lanka sent a contingent to the games, including a 10,000-meter runner by the name of Ranatunge Karunananda. The 10,000-meter race was won by Billy Mills of the USA and when Mills passed the finish line, Ranatunge was still 4 laps behind. (It is said that he was unwell that day). The spectators expected him to quit at some point but he kept running. As he kept running alone, people began to laugh at him and some even began to heckle him. But he still kept running.

When the spectators eventually realized that this unknown athlete was determined to finish the race, the jeers slowly turned to admiration and some applause slowly began to rise across the Stadium. As he started on the final lap, the applause grew louder as the crowd, now inspired by his perseverance, encouraged him to complete the race. Cheers and applause erupted as the exhausted athlete eventually finished the race.

Interviewed after the race, Ranatunge said, “The Olympic spirit is not to win, but to take part. So, I completed my rounds.” This story captured the imagination and the heart of the Japanese public so vividly that it eventually found its way into Japanese school textbooks!

Possible Preaching Angle:

Today, many Christians are giving up on their spiritual race due to hardships and challenges that come their way. Let's be inspired by the words of Paul who said, “…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:13-14).

When Randy Smalls found out his daughter was participating in the bullying of another girl at her middle school, he took swift action. But rather than simply disciplining his daughter with a typical punitive action, he took a different approach.

Ryan Reese, the target of the bullying, had been struggling with the loss of several family members. When Smalls’ wife, who was friends with Ryan’s mother, found out about Ryan’s struggles at school, they devised a plan.

Using the money that he initially intended to spend on his daughter, Smalls took Ryan out on a shopping spree, and had his daughter come along to help pick out her clothes. Then after dropping his daughter off at church, Smalls took Ryan to a beauty salon for a makeover. He even convinced several other salons to donate their services so that Ryan could be styled twice-a-month for several months.

Ryan’s mother, Richaun, was grateful to see a smile on her daughter’s face. “This is the first time I’ve seen a parent take such a stance on bullying.” Smalls took such drastic action because he remembers being bullied himself as a youth. “I say, ‘When you laugh along, you’re co-signing the bullying.’”

Potential Preaching Angles: God has a heart for the outcast and rejected, and has judgment in store for those who marginalize others instead of loving the marginalized.

When Nicole Carroll authorized a story on blackface photos and other racist imagery in yearbooks, she probably assumed it would have an illuminating impact on her newspaper’s readership. She probably didn’t realize that she herself would end up in the spotlight. But that’s exactly what happened.

Carroll is the editor in chief of USA TODAY. As part of its coverage of the scandal involving pictures of Virginia governor Ralph Northam in blackface, several journalists did an extensive review of more than 900 yearbooks from the same time period as Northam’s. One of the many pictures with similar racist imagery was the 1988-89 yearbook from Arizona State University, Carroll’s alma mater, which she also edited.

The news daily was forced to run a letter of apology from Carroll, which included this excerpt:

The 1988-89 yearbook I edited at Arizona State University included a photo of two people at a Halloween party dressed as Mike Tyson and Robin Givens. It is horrible, and of course the photo should not have been published. Clearly the 21-year-old me who oversaw the book and that page didn’t understand how offensive the photo was. I wish I had. Today’s 51-year-old me of course understands and is crushed by this mistake.

In a companion story explaining the methodology of the expose, journalists at USA Today summarized their work saying:

We found questionable photos virtually everywhere we looked – what amounted to a montage of everyday, casual bigotry memorialized among pages that captured daily life on campuses.

We understand that, for many people, these images will be painful reminders of the racism and mockery they have experienced. We decided, however, that publishing them was necessary, to show their pervasiveness, to avoid diluting their impact and to be as transparent as possible about what we found.

Leighanne Bromley was listening to a message from staff at her son’s school, and she later said when she heard the whole thing, her jaw hit the floor.

Bromley’s ten-year-old son with autism had been out of school with a cold, and the message was ostensibly a basic check-in about his return. After the point where the woman thought she had disconnected the call, however, the voicemail recorded an exchange between her and another male staffer, joking about whether or not he could be held out toward the end of the year.

Bromley understands that her son had some behavioral struggles, but was still taken aback by their cavalier disposition. “I was gobsmacked and horrified someone who is entrusted with my son's care had that attitude towards him.” The episode especially rankled Bromley because she’d only received reports of minor problems in her son’s three years of previous attendance, and even his most recent struggles were concerning enough that she’d reached out to school officials on how to best strategize solutions.

The incident also prompted questions of whether or not such disrespectful staff behavior was widespread, since more than half of the students at the school are also on the autism spectrum. In response, school headmaster Rob Jones personally apologized for their behavior, and offered a statement on the school website:

“This type of behavior is not acceptable and goes against the values of our school. We are taking this matter seriously and a full internal investigation is taking place.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Our unguarded moments tend to reveal the character inside. Thoughtless joking can cause incredible pain and suffering, and erode the sense of community we say that we want.

Bible scholar and pastor N.T. Wright retells the following story about an archbishop who was hearing a confessions of sin from three hardened teenagers in the church. All three boys were trying to make a joke out of it so they met with the archbishop and confessed to a long list of ridiculous and grievous sins that they had not committed. It was all a joke. The archbishop, seeing through their bad practical joke, played along with the first two who ran out of the church laughing. But then he listened carefully to the third prankster, and before he got away told the young man, "Okay, you have confessed these sins. Now I want you to do something to show your repentance. I want you to walk up to the far end of the church and I want you to look at the picture of Jesus hanging on the cross, and I want you to look at his face and say, 'You did all that for me and I don't care that much.' And I want you to do that three times."

And so the boy went up to the front, looked at the picture of Jesus and said, "You did all that for me and I don't care that much." And then he said it again, but then he couldn't say it the third time because he broke down in tears. And the archbishop telling the story said, the reason I know that story is that I was that young man. There is something about the cross. Something about Jesus dying there for us which leaps over all the theoretical discussions, all the possibilities of how we explain it this way or that way and it grasps us. And when we are grasped by it, somehow we have a sense that what is grasping us is the love of God.

Journalist Kevin D. Williamson has worked for CNBC, MSNBC, NPR, and The National Review. Williamson visited Baton Rouge soon after the shooting of six police officers, three of whom died. He comments on the frequent phrase "thoughts and prayers" offered by politicians and others in the midst of tragedies:

It has become fashionable [for some journalists] to mock the offering of "thoughts and prayers" … after a natural disaster or a terrorist massacre … Comedienne Samantha Bee threw a profanity-laced fit over "thoughts and prayers" after the Orlando massacre, and [political policymaker Corey Ciorciari] mocked such goodwill expressions after the police ambush in Baton Rouge: "Thoughts and prayers didn't seem to stop the last 193 mass shootings this year," he wrote. "Maybe we should try something different?"

Williamson attended an outdoor candlelight vigil for slain police officer Matthew Gerald at Healing Place Church. He concludes his article:

Pastor Ryan Firth [says], "It seems that our community has been in disarray for the past few weeks. If we're being honest, it has been in disarray for years." His message is based on [Jesus' words in] John 16:33: "I have overcome the world." Maybe not quite yet, but they are trying. A series of pastors and speakers exhort the crowd to sympathy, charity, and forgiveness. [Another speaker says], "Anger, frustration—take it and discard it … We are here to love our neighbors as ourselves." One must consider that these [Christians] know something that eludes the likes of Samantha Bee and Corey Ciorciari and the rest of us urban sophisticates: In the end, thoughts and prayers do matter. They matter more than most other things. And they are, for the moment, what's keeping the peace in Baton Rouge and many other communities like it.

Lance Morrow, an award-winning journalist with Time magazine, once set out to write an article asking if there was one universal joke, told everywhere around the world. Here's what happened:

I sent out a query to all of Time's bureaus around the world—Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, New Delhi, Jerusalem, Rome, Bonn, London, Paris, Rio, Buenos Aires, and so on. I asked the correspondents to tell me one or two jokes then current in their part of the world.

It turns out there is a universal joke. It was what Americans refer to as the "Polish joke." Except of course that everywhere, the role of [Polish people] in the "Polish joke" is enacted by some appropriate other group. The Flemings have Walloon jokes, for example. The English tell Irish jokes, and vice versa …. The people in Tokyo have jokes about the people in Osaka. I was once on the tiny island of Grenada (133 square miles) and was told that people on one side of the island had a large stock of vicious jokes about people on the other side of the island; and vice versa.

In the universal humor, as in universal evil, you need the Other. The Other is the butt of your joke, or the butt of your evil.