Irony, Illustrated

What we like about this photo is that the two signs—the one endorsing English and the other butchering English—were quite clearly written by the same hand. Presumably the little girl’s.

Irony, Illustrated

If you want to get technical, we will be forced to admit it’s possible that this fellow is protesting the stupidity of the Moran family, whoever they are. But you’d have to be a moran to believe that.

Irony, Illustrated

 

We’re not really sure whether this one passes the irony test, or, failing that, whether it passes for clever or super-stupid. As the entire message is, in fact, written in stone, it proves itself wrong and thus pretty pointless . . . but then again, the word “nothing ” is written in stone right here, so if read literally, the statement is technically correct . . . and pretty pointless.

All we can say for sure is that there’s somebody out there with a chisel and way too much free time.

Dumb, Illustrated

Irony, Illustrated

While we wouldn't go so far as to say that discussions of the definition of irony are widespread enough to call it a burning issue, certain kinds of people keep talking about it. The definition remains as slippery as always. This photo, for example, might better be described as poetic justice—although poetic justice does often involve heavy doses of irony.

We tried using Google to look up illustrations that would explain “poetic justice,” but all we got was nine billion pictures of Janet Jackson. So we’re afraid that you'll just have to settle for looking at a picture of a Klan guy on fire.

Odds are about 100% that this image is staged—something from a TV show or movie—but we comfort ourselves with the belief that at one point or another, it's happened in real life. One can always hope.

This Post Brought to You by Indignation, Irony, and Hypocrisy

Among the many benefits of being a citizen of the United States of America in the twenty-first century are that:

• we are the beneficiaries—assuming we’ve taken advantage of it—of twelve years’ worth of free schooling¹ in an educational system that, while perhaps not the best in the world, is certainly better than the alternative.²

• we have unparalleled access—thanks to a nationwide network of public libraries, bookstores, and an internet filled almost entirely with deftly phrased, mature, and well-researched philosophical discussions, to thousands of years’ and millions of pages’ worth of the human race’s most compelling, challenging, enlightening, and thought-provoking political and philosophical thought.

• we are spiritual descendants of a distinguished intellectual tradition that began with luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, and thrived for centuries until it was unceremoniously murdered by Philo T. Farnsworth.

So with all that in mind, it wouldn’t be odd to expect Americans to engage in well-spoken, well-educated, thoughtful political discourse, would it?

(Crickets chirping)

 

Suck it, Jefferson. You knew it would come to this.

On my drive home from work the other day I spotted a bumper sticker that read “If you voted for Obamtard, thanks a lot, ASSHAT.”

My second reaction³ to this was disgust and dismay that this is how real live grown-up Americans—educated adults, most of us, with literally hundreds of thousands of hours’ worth of opportunities to practice shaping and polishing our thoughts to convince and inspire—are choosing to express their political views these days. It’s like we’re going out of our way to prove that putting power in the hands of the common people was a tragic, hilarious mistake, that the best we can do to express a difference in political opinion is to resort to name-calling and using language better suited for a bathroom stall.⁴

My first reaction to the bumper sticker was “what a dickhead.”⁵

NOTES

1. Or more than twelve years, if you flunk a couple of times. Hey, why not? Free school! And by “free” we of course mean “paid for by everybody, so not actually free, but sort of like free if you’ve had just the right amount to drink.”
2. That alternative being, for the sake of our argument, “not going to school and being a big fat idiot.”
3. Yes, second, not first. Keep reading; I promise it’ll all make sense. Or at least, it’ll make as much sense as any of the bullshit you typically find here.
4. “Asshat” is, I admit, not true bathroom-stall language—it’s far from being in the same league as f-----, c--ks-----, w--r-, --t--a--, or s--d---h-e--er. On the other hand, it’s a stupid, tired, overused term, and you’re a total f----- if you use it. Knowledgeable sources have described the term as “the douchebag’s ‘douchebag.’ ”
5. For what it’s worth—not that it’s necessarily any of your business—we didn’t vote for President Obama, and given the chance to do it over, we’d not vote for him again.

Irony, Illustrated

This is the Wildlife Experience museum in Parker, Colorado. From what we can tell from the photographs, it’s not a park, a nature preserve, or even an open stretch of grassland. It’s a building.

Wildlife! Also, air conditioning!

 Yes, that’s correct: in order to truly experience wildlife in Parker, Colorado, you have to go indoors.
 

The great outdoors is for chumps.

Also, the wildlife inside appears to be considerably less lively than one might expect, given that the name of the place includes the word “life.”

To be fair, though, we’ve never been inside the Wildlife Experience, and for all we know it’s a fun and informative museum that does a great job of instilling respect for actual living wildlife, assuming that sort of thing still exists.

Plus, it may be a good thing to experience stuffed wildlife in a safe, air-conditioned, antiseptic building . . . given the alternatives.

Irony, Illustrated

If eccept means fail, then, yes, you have eccepted the challenge of the TAKS test.

Irony, Illustrated

Irony, Illustrated?

Whether this genuinely qualifies as situational irony is a decision we’ll leave up to today’s honorary guest judge, Alanis Morrissette. No matter what she concludes, though, we thoroughly enjoy knowing that this particular member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars—ostensibly an organization for bright, highly-educated people—couldn’t figure out how to apply a windshield decal so it’d be readable.

Maybe that’s not irony, but it sure ain’t smart, either.

“Well, that’s at least as ironic as a plane crash.
Those are ironic, right?”

Irony, Illustrated

 

It’s a gutsy philosophy to live by,
but if you’re willing to regret just one single hing, now might be the time.





 

Irony, Illustrated

In his defense, his sign doesn’t say anything about knowing how to write in English.

Irony, Illustrated

 . . . and yet they’re still making more money than you are.
A lot more.

Irony, Illustrated

To be fair, why would the literacy program try to help newspaper writers? 

They’re not miracle workers.

Irony, Illustrated