HUmor Review of the Morning News

Seattle -- Recently Morning News has been presented with an attempt at a humorous caption for every item. But this attempt to snarkify almost everything is raising controversy, because some readers think the writers just can be consistently funny and not all items deserve the merry prankster pose.

"A Mystery That's Probably a Tragedy: French jet traveling from Brazil to Paris vanishes."

Here the ambiguity is clear. The caption makes no sense and usually jokes about deaths of innocent people are a challenge.

"Gravity Kills: 20-something Washington man dies after fall from Rattlesnake Ledge.

But Sometimes Gravity Is Content to Merely Humiliate: Woman falls 150 feet during roadside potty break."

Yes, often the attempt to joke about innocents just seems mean, if not lame. [get it?]

"In Custody: The suspected killer of Dr. George Tiller."

And of course, the nonjoke will always stand out. All the captions used to be like this, just informative, without the ambition of being funny 95% of the time.

"Oh, Like You've Never Done It: Woman may have kept mother's body in freezer for 20 years."

OK, this one's kind of funny in a way that many captions of the fuller posts are. So, batting one out of five so far!

"Actually, You Do Need Some Stinkin' Papers: Starting today, Americans will need a valid passport to enter the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, and Bermuda."

Another one, not so bad, despite lingering ethnic anti immigrant overtons. Give this one a C-. [And travllers: you need a passport to enter from anywhere, don't take that item literally!]

"Put That In Your Pipe and Smoke It: County pays $2,000 to medical marijuana user."
Cliche.

"The Threat to Human Life Keeps Going and Going and Going: Toddler dies two weeks after swallowing one of those little round batteries."

Fourth joke about death or great bodily harm. A quadri! [get it?]

Try this rule of thumb: if the event happened long ago or the victim is guilty of right wing views -- like if that abortion doctor killer got his -- humor at death and injury can be funny. But otherwise, it's really a challenge, esp. if a baby is involved.
"Dear Phillippines, Sorry About The Death March, Love, Japan": Japan Apologizes for Bataan Death March."

Wow. Now making fun of nations trying to do the right thing. What's up next, poking fun at apologies for slavery? Joshing ovver reparations paid to interned Japanese Americans, or to Jews? There could be a whole gold mine of humor focused on recognition of war crimes. But again, being snarky about tragedy has its special challenges.

"Her Final Words Were "If You Play Celine Fucking Dion at My Funeral I'll Haunt You to Death": Last survivor of the Titanic dies."

Wow, quite a focus on death and injury. This one is strained. C- again.

"This Headline Shattered My Monocle: "Teens: Oral Sex and Casual Prostitution No Biggie.""
A real knee slapper, imagine the kinds of snotty blue nosed puritans who would even think that teenagers engaged in prostitution is some kind of "news" or "issue" to have any concerns about! ROTFL!!! OK, now where do I find those teenager prostitutes and when can we get some of that tourism that's being grabbed by Cambodia and Thailand, ha, ha ha??

consistently be funny?