Not every moment of L'esprit de l'escalier in this blog will
come from me, it turns out - sometimes, you see what someone should have done,
but didn't. Sometimes, that person is you. This particular time, it's Jimmy
Kimmel.
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| I said "Kimmel," not "Killem." Nyuck, nyuck. |
As this link explains,
Kimmel hosted a "kid's U.N. panel" or some such misguided attempt to
elicit silly solutions from children that turn out to have hauntingly and
laugh-inducing overtones... which backfired miserably when one of the children
proposed a "solution" to our 1.15 Trillion dollar debt to China
by "killing all the people in China." Kimmel was flummoxed, clearly,
choosing to try to play off the discomfort by chucklingly addressing it as an
"interesting idea." Here's the clip:
Of course, it's not interesting. Not even clever. This kid
looked like he was maybe eight or nine years old, though, and Kimmel is five
times that; he has the right to show a modicum of parenting skills.
Clearly, here's the response that L'esprit de l'escalier would
have gone with: "Oh... oh, no [shakes head in paternal disapproval]; we don't
make jokes like that - China isn't *really* a threat, we just make fun
sometimes because we owe them a lot of money. But when you think about it, we
should really thank them because they invested over a Trillion dollars into our
economy! I'm sorry for the miscommunication
about that; you want to try again?" Retake, the kid nails it (we hope),
and *that's* what you air. Not the end of the world.
Instead, we now have people calling for at least Kimmel's
job, and at most his head on a pike, and they have a petition online where you
can add your name to the former of those calls-for-action.
But this is why I'm not signing it: even though it was an
unconscionable oversight and a joke that nobody should make, getting rid of
Kimmel is just going to sidestep two things: the main issue at hand (which is
that we find China a threat because we owe them money), and an opportunity for
a very valuable reconciliation - Kimmel's public apology along with that of the child who said it.
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| American Flag Juice: Providing 200% of the RDA for patriotic overreaction. |
See, we're sort of treating this kid like a catalyst who is
consumed in the reaction that his statement started, and that's not fair to the
child - we need to give him a chance to tell the public that he made a mistake
while trying to be funny - heck, how many stand-up comedians in recent months
have wished for that opportunity and didn't get it? A lot, probably, and yet
here we are, willing to just throw a young boy under the bus for probably just
misunderstanding that line of where "The Rule of Funny" ends. And I can't even begin to guesstimate how many times I've misread that line, and a few of them are probably even documented in this blog. Sorry about that.
And that 20/20-hindsight speech I put in Kimmel's mouth,
even if it might be too sugar-coated to have aired in my imaginary recast, is
still true and good advice: China did
invest that money in us, and we should
thank them and show the proper respect one does to a benefactor by not joking
(in public, on television, on a major network broadcast to millions of people)
about "killing them all" - it's not just gauche, it's genocide.
But that doesn't make Jimmy Kimmel Hitler - and it doesn't
make that nine-year-old boy Hitler, either. It makes us *all* Hitler - but only
if we don't recognize it as wrong, which I really think we all do. And that's
what needs to be said.
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| And if everyone is Hitler, then this baby is, too - and that's just too terrifying to allow to become reality. |
Because somewhere, there's also a young kid in China who
thinks that people really *do* want to kill him and his family and all the
people in his country because they're jealous of how well they're financially
doing (not that that hypothetical kid is necessarily well-off; China isn't
known for distributing their wealth much more efficiently than America is,
which is sort of ironic considering their Communist pretensions... and I don't
think that's an unfair criticism of either country). Someone needs to let that
kid know that it's okay, and that we're not going to go to war with them. And,
optimally, that there is no "us" and "them," but rather a
global community of people who have the common goal of the greatest good, when
push really comes to shove.
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| There. A baby flashing a peace-sign - that ought to erase the prior image from your brain. Okay, enough with the cute-baby crap - I'm starting to feel like Anne Geddes here... |
Because it's Veteran's Day, 2013. It's time to honor it by
admitting that the wars our soldiers so bravely fought in, while they obviously
had to happen (because, to apply the Anthropic principle to geopolitical
history, they *did* happen, and there's nothing we can do about it now but try
to find meaning in it), that doesn't mean that they have to keep happening, and that the future is
ours to choose - and the vast, overwhelming majority of people will choose
peace over war any day of the week. Even Monday.
I don't think this is optimism, either - that would imply
that there's another jaded reality in the face of which this sentiment is
flying. However, when you look at it, it's just realism - people choose peace
over war every day. Sure, their reasons may be that they think they'll lose if
they start one, or they just don't think that kind of expenditure of time and
energy is worth it, but they still choose it. I chose it the other day when I
tried to change lanes and somebody almost rear-ended me, forcing me back over
to watch them speed by, their fist literally waving at me out the window, cursing
my deficit of driving (in point of
fact, I should have checked my blind spot more carefully, I suppose, but I'm
convinced they must have been speeding something awful to be able to appear so
suddenly like that. Fine, it was my fault...), and I just apologetically
gestured with an open palm and mouthed "I'm sorry." That was choosing
peace. When you're in the supermarket, and someone has like a million items in
the "Express Lane" that is clearly
marked '15 Items or Less', but you ignore it and just wait patiently? That
is choosing peace.
Choosing peace is always right. Not avoiding conflict, mind
you - those will arise naturally, and can be remedied through debate and
conversation - but choosing peace by not waging war. We do that all the time,
and China is no different. We are more alike than we are unalike, my friends,
if Maya Angelou will allow me to co-opt her without permission.
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| See? Even if I were a monster, she'd still hug me - that's how awesome Maya Angelou is. I be she even forgives me for when I accidentally called her a "woman of suffrage" in my 10th-grade Biographical essay, too. Nope. No hero-worship here; move along... |
And I think I'm okay with doing that - because I'm pretty
sure Maya Angelou, like most people, will choose peace every time.
So if you want to commemorate Veteran's Day, try giving some
peace: donate to the victims of Hurricane Haiyan (it means "sea bird"
in Mandarin, after all, and sea-birds are pretty peaceful... to watch, at least
- noise-wise, they're squawky little bastards).
And remember - not every veteran was in a uniform, and not every soldier has fought
in a war.
