In memory of Danny and for the future of our son, who is almost here, I also want to ask the people of Pakistan to act upon the sentiments they have expressed and build a memorial for Danny in Karachi. <p>**Tell you what, lady. You go build one there, and we'll all come see it someday. Next time we're in Pakistan. Promise.**

I'll tell YOU what, sunshine - how about you go fuck yourself? I'm sure your family will never have cause to mourn your tragic and untimely death while bravely holding the fort on the nightdesk.<p> <blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by jjmoney62:
In memory of Danny and for the future of our son, who is almost here, I also want to ask the people of Pakistan to act upon the sentiments they have expressed and build a memorial for Danny in Karachi. <p>**Tell you what, lady. You go build one there, and we'll all come see it someday. Next time we're in Pakistan. Promise.**<hr></blockquote>

You want the Testy Reporters Room, Sir Speedy.
Two doors down.

JJ: I was going to let it slide, given that blanp has been an indulgent parent in these regards, but since the other guy brought it up: your attempt at humor was tasteless and out of line. <p>A few months back a co-worker of mine who I didn't even know was shot and killed, and it was a wrenching experience. 10 years ago a guy who sat behind me was murdered by Peruvian drug thugs. It was real to me then, and when Daniel Pearl got killed it was all real to me again. <p>Whatever his widow -- you know, the woman who'll raise the child who'll never see his daddy -- does, short of becoming a competitor on "Fear Factor," merits the compassion and understanding you'd grant anyone whose husband was taken in such terrible fashion.

I read JJMoney's remark as a criticism of Mariane Pearl's status as a Terror Widow, a term coined by the cartoonist Ted Rall.<p><p>
I feel pretty much the same way. Think about it, putting aside any sympathy for Pearl's unborn son: How ludicrous is it to suggest that Pakistan erect a memorial to an American reporter? <p>I did not read it as making light of Pearl's fate.<p>Now, lighten up, everyone! It's poor form to tell anyone in this forum to "fuck yourself."<p>[ April 22, 2002: Message edited by: blanp ]<p>[ April 22, 2002: Message edited by: blanp ]</p>

People routinely behave badly when loved ones die suddenly. Ordinary citizens thrust into the spotlight by history deserve to be cut a bit of slack. <p>Rall's cartoon was so bereft of basic decency that it turned by stomach. <p>If the terror widows are a media creation, then we deserve to take our lumps with a smile, but the widows are still going to be widows.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by tom mangan:
[QB]People routinely behave badly when loved ones die suddenly. Ordinary citizens thrust into the spotlight by history deserve to be cut a bit of slack. [QB]<hr></blockquote><p>Thrust in the spotlight? She wrote an op-ed piece for the NY Times. The shirttail tells us she's writing a book about the incident. I've read reports that she's done television interviews. <p>Blanp was correct. I wasn't trying to be funny. I was trying to make a point about how people thrust *themselves* into the spotlight after a loved one's death. I've actually known a few people who've died during my lifetime. I know what loss feels like. I've just never chatted about it on television with Larry King.<p>I'm sorry for Mariane Pearl's loss. There's just an element of exploitation in perpetuating media coverage of your husband's death and using the unborn child as a prop. She and Daniel Pearl made a conscious decision to court risk and create the possibility that the boy they conceived would grow up without a father.<p>All grief and anguish aside, asking Pakistanis to erect a monument sounds just a little goofy.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by jjmoney62:
<p>Thrust in the spotlight? She wrote an op-ed piece for the NY Times. The shirttail tells us she's writing a book about the incident. I've read reports that she's done television interviews.<hr></blockquote><p>The problem here is she wouldn't have had such a forum had her husband not been brutally slain.
I think in all this haste to meet deadlines and copyedit two words out of our copy, we've lost sight of compassion. <p>Oh, we rationalize it as "I was just kidding," or "Can't you take a joke," but we, all of us in this industry, think it's OK for us to make fun of "them." To ridicule the little guy, even if she does go on television, because we can.<p>Maybe we just need to grow up. I sure hope none of you cracked jokes when a colleague from Tampa, Todd C. Smith, was slain in Latin America nearly a decade ago covering the drug trade. It was a horrible time for friends, acquaintances and colleagues. I can only imagine what his family felt like. <p>But apparently they'd be fair game, too.<p>And regarding your comment that:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>She and Daniel Pearl made a conscious decision to court risk and create the possibility that the boy they conceived would grow up without a father.<hr></blockquote>
Well, that's like blaming a woman for wearing a skirt and walking across a street before someone attacks her. Go ahead and blame the victim.<p>JJ, maybe you need to get a life, because the one you have apparently sucks.<p>[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: newsy01 ]</p>

Newsy
To repeat, no one in this forum was "cracking jokes" or making even a veiled attempt at humor. Also, your two attempts at analogy don't make logical sense and, in fact, cross the line into the realm of insulting.
I appreciate your concern and compassion, but perhaps you might want to read the entire thread and edit your post again. I fear, tho, that we're beginning to bore our fellow copy editors with this old thread.

>>I appreciate your concern and compassion, but perhaps you might want to read the entire thread and edit your post again. I fear, tho, that we're beginning to bore our fellow copy editors with this old thread.
JJ, whatever this thread may be, it certainly isn't boring.
When people get stirred up enough to spew a stream of fucks 'n' sucks (poor form though it is)it's because the issue at hand strikes an emotional chord. And that's worth listening to.
News people have a twisted sense of humor. This can be hard to take; it was jarring for me when I was a newbie. I used to go home and cry about animal abuse briefs I read on the nation wire. I would hear reporters and copy editors joking about death and murder and rape and it would make my stomach turn.
Over time, I realized that these jokes were a powerful defense mechanism for people looking death and destruction and cruelty every day. It's a (and I hate like hell to say this, but a better term escapes me) coping tool. It's laughing away the pain.
How much pain can a copy editor feel, some may wonder? You go on the AP international photo wire and look at some of the shit that gets sent over, blood and bodies and parts. Go on any wire and read the hell that people wreak every day, how unbelievably fucking cruel and demented they are.
You may be coolheaded enough to deal with it and move along emotionally. You may need levity and seek it by making light of it. You may go home and cry for a while.
After 7 years, I'm still not all that tough, but I'm tougher. I haven't shed many tears (save Sept. 11). I've begun to understand and even laugh at some of these jokes. Not all, but some. (I just tune out the ones that bother me. I also tune out things I read that I don't like. Kind of like how you can turn off the TV or the radio if you don't like what's on. I think this is a novel idea that could make me rich one day).
As an aside, if any of the tenderhearted ever hear the sick jokes cops make, newsroom humor would seem far tamer, I believe.
So, JJ, can I get a witness, I admit it, call me names, I laughed like hell when I saw the first post, not because I'm insensitive, not because I have no sympathy for widows and orphans, but because you'd have a better chance getting capuchin monkeys to reenact "A Chorus Line" than getting Pakistanis to build a monument to an American they killed.

It's impossible to crack wise in a forum like this in the same way you'd crack wise on the copy desk. <p>If it's a bunch of us sitting around after deadline waiting for the pages to come back from the pressroom, everybody understands what's happening when the gallows humor starts to flow. <p>When it's just pixels on a webpage, though, none of the context shines through, so what works in a real setting seems way out of line when it's pixels on a Web page and no context to leaven the inherent cruelty.