Baby Smashers!

[cracked]

smasher.

[Stonehead]

Pope,

It's the whole idea of making fun of sacred cows. That's the humor that underlies Monty Python, the original SNL, Mad magazine, and many comedians too numerous to count.

 

Nobody in their right mind would actually take baby smashing seriously. Did you read the disclaimer on the website?

[Gary_Yngve]

What about this product?

 

http://www.bonsaikitten.com/

[pope]

Pope,

It's the whole idea of making fun of sacred cows. That's the humor that underlies Monty Python, the original SNL, Mad magazine, and many comedians too numerous to count.

 

Nobody in their right mind would actually take baby smashing seriously. Did you read the disclaimer on the website?

 

I think I understand what's supposed to be funny about it. I find it neither especially offensive nor remotely funny. I can't see where the author of this (or related material) is especially talented or clever. The crap that's on network television at 8:00 p.m. these days reflects this lack of talent as well as a public demand for "humor" that dwells on boobies and bedroom talk. Again, it's not that I'm particularly offended, I'm just not inclined to appreciate lazy writing, and I'm not impressed by entertainers/comedians who find it necessary to attack our "sacred cows".

[pope]

What about this product?

 

http://www.bonsaikitten.com/

 

What some people won't do to get attention.

[cracked]

Pope, you're a moron. Not that we didn't know that already, but still.

[MervGriffin]

Nobody in their right mind would actually take baby smashing seriously. Did you read the disclaimer on the website?

 

Nobody questions that it is someone's attempt at humor. In a relatively free society, you can post this sort of stuff. However, civilized people don't find humor in child abuse/murder. One of the complaints foreigners often have with America, which many otherwise might respect, is its cultural propensity for, if not glorification of, violence, and the kind expressed in humor such as "Baby Smasher" is vile. It reminds me of the time I went to the movies to see a David Lynch Film, "Wild at Heart". Near the beginning of the film, some guy graphically gets his head bashed in. The audience was laughing. Same goes for the piece of crap film everyone thinks is so wonderful, "Pulp Fiction". The audience delighted in the extreme violence and I found them even more sickening than the film. I walked out, disturbed that our culture often seems to encourage people to find such things amusing.

 

As movie critic Roger Ebert once wrote about "Wild at Heart",

"The movie is lurid melodrama, soap opera, exploitation, put-on and self-satire. It deals in several scenes of particularly offensive violence, and tries to excuse them by juvenile humor: It's all a joke, you see, and so if the violence offends you, you didn't get the joke."

 

I don't get the joke.

[Double_E]

I'm guessing these guys are your heroes:

 

how can you even begin to put those two in the same box?!?

one's a vain, pedophilical wacko, and ones a badass adventurer and naturalist!

puh-leeze!!

[jjd]

 

 

 

 

[AaronB]

Pope, your sanctimonious geriatric reply speaks for itself. You and your American Taliban probably are the ones all up in arms about the Janet Jackson boob flop and who are pushing to throw Howard Stern off the air. You're gonna save us from ourselves, right? Restore a sense of decency to the airwaves and living rooms of America?

 

Ooowwww...sport climbing and profane baby jokes--the twin evil scourge haunting America.

 

I don't think your "Baby Smashers" post is so terrible, just terribly stupid, in poor taste, and generally not funny. That you find it amusing is something for which you may wish to seek therapy.

 

Regarding Janet's boob flop, the point is that the Super Bowl is, in many homes, a family-oriented event. Football and professional sports in general are marketed toward kids, and kids deserve a childhood. Jantet showing her seasoned boobies served only perpetutate her dwindling career. Face it, she's another retread from the last decade. I find it amusing that anybody would want to see her naked, puzzling that anybody would defend her action. She's had every opportunity to show her flopping utters in an appropriate venue. I support her right to get naked for an adults-only medium; the half-time show at the Super Bowl isn't the right place. Stonehead, since she is obviously a source of arousal for you, I'm happy that you got to see her. I only hope that her action hasn't kindled in you a new desire for aged women that will find you lurking behind the hedge at the senior center.

 

Wow Stonehead, you nailed the "up in arms" over Janet Jackson thing right! That took me a long time to read, let alone write. Must be important to someone.

 

Oh and just to add. Football is family oriented? Do you split pitchers of beer with your kids over diner? Didn't think so. Do they drive cars they buy? Didn't think so... Hmmnnn I wonder what the target audience is for the super bowl? Sounds like Drunk Drivers to me! p.s. I'm refering to the commercials.. Not exactly the same ones as spounge bob.

[MervGriffin]

 

 

 

 

 

Hey freak. Try this on for size:

 

[Stonehead]

One of the complaints foreigners often have with America, which many otherwise might respect, is its cultural propensity for, if not glorification of, violence, and the kind expressed in humor such as "Baby Smasher" is vile.

 

I don't believe it's so much the glorification of violence as it is a reflection of our violent society, i.e., explicit violence expressed in murders and assaults and sublimated violence in sports.

 

A lot of controversy surrounded Sam Peckinpah's The Long Riders (1969) and yet why was there an outcry in a society exposed to real life violence through the TV screen witnessed as the Vietnam War, assassinations, riots and civil unrest, etc. Also, there was Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), which graphically displayed the two impulses of testosterone--fuck it or kill it--or as Jane's Addiction would later sing in Nothing's Shocking, "Sex and Violence". David Croneberg offers a believable explanation in Videodrome (1983) when a character essentially states that America has gotten weak and soft, that graphic depiction of violence is needed to desensitize the population to be able to bear and commit violent acts to counter a hostile world. Does his thesis hold any water?

 

Decades later, after school shootings and workplace murders, are we seeing the fruits of that 'social experiment' propagated through visual media, audio entertainment, and video games, i.e., the 'hardening of America'?

 

Maybe you are right in a way, that this kind of joke makes it easier to perform acts that debase the sanctity of life, acts such as abortion. Yet the issue is not in contrasts of black and white but rather in shades of gray since it begs the question whose life is held in higher regard, the undeveloped fetus' or the mother's, who's already a functioning member (or existing burden)of society. Do two wrongs make a right?

 

I believe humor is a form of expressing the truth, not necessarily truth itself, but rather points to it. Listen to comedian Bill Hicks who tells of trailer trash having 'litters' of babies and tell me again if everyone believes in sanctity.

 

[MervGriffin]

"I believe humor is a form of expressing the truth, not necessarily truth itself, but rather points to it."

 

Humor doesn't necessarily point to "the truth".

Point in case: "Babysmashers". There is no "truth" there other than that SOME people find humor in child abuse as a reflection of a desensitized violent society or otherwise. On the other hand, there are many who find it utterly vulgar.

 

"Listen to comedian Bill Hicks who tells of trailer trash having 'litters' of babies and tell me again if everyone believes in sanctity."

 

I never claimed everybody believes in sanctity. That's part of the problem. One of the down-sides of a "free" society is that it often seduces the immature into pushing the limits of acceptability. A mature free society and democracy requires some degree of personal moral restraint or it will decay into a confused and conflicted puddle of mud. Plenty of evidence of that today. Little is sacred, values become relative and ambiguous, and there are few standards other than the lowest common denominator. You want to live that way? Go ahead. You have lots of reinforcement.

 

shalom,

 

Merv

 

[icegirl]

thank you, merv, I could not have put it better.... shalom

[klenke]

I just want to echo Icegirl's comment.

 

{The world is going to hell in a 2-dollar handbasket.}

 

Duran Duran:

"I'm on a ride and I wanna get off

But I can't slow down the roundabout."

[AlpineK]

Back when those yellow baby on board signs first came out a friend of mine made a bunch of yellow hazard signs saying, "Baby dragging beneath."

 

Suck it dwaner and poop

[MervGriffin]

Back when those yellow baby on board signs first came out a friend of mine made a bunch of yellow hazard signs saying, "Baby dragging beneath."

 

Proud of yourselves?

 

 

[AlpineK]

Why yes I am. At the time my thoughts were that I should try and respect other drivers equally no matter if they had a baby or not. Those signs were a kind of look at me thing.

 

Fuck em and fuck your sanctimonious attitude.

 

[MervGriffin]

Fuck em and fuck your sanctimonious attitude.

 

Cute Baby says: "My, how articulate!"

 

[RobBob]

I felt the same way as AlpineK about those damn things. My sister-in-law put one in her car. What she really was saying is Look at Me and My Baby!

 

Hell, as a parent I'm not offended by the Baby Smasher. Although I think it's, uh...dumb...I understand that it is an attempt at humor.

 

Let's look back 275 years for the precedent on this: Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal"

[Stonehead]

I never claimed everybody believes in sanctity. That's part of the problem. One of the down-sides of a "free" society is that it often seduces the immature into pushing the limits of acceptability. A mature free society and democracy requires some degree of personal moral restraint or it will decay into a confused and conflicted puddle of mud. Plenty of evidence of that today. Little is sacred, values become relative and ambiguous, and there are few standards other than the lowest common denominator. You want to live that way? Go ahead. You have lots of reinforcement.

 

If a work of art or other visual piece evokes only a viscersal response it falls under the category of pornography. A viscersal reaction could be disgust or desire. Now if it elicits comment such as thoughtful discussion, any engagement above the physical, then it is more than pornography. My reaction is that sometimes revulsion towards what some term 'bad' pop art or music or whatever, is that it seems we are in a cultural war. Wasn't there a similar movement underfoot in pre-war Germany, that movement rooted somewhat in the impulse to purge degenerate influences, a lot of which was considered to have been produced by communists? I find it interesting how that very action that seeks to elevate society is paradoxically that which serves to debase it also.

 

I favor a liberitarian society but realize that that goal is unrealistic considering that requires a mature (whatever that really means) society.

 

I am only reminded with current world events that a thin veneer of civilization covers the barbarism inherent in our being. One only needs to think of Nazi Germany. I do not believe in vularity for its own sake but rather I see humor especially as political satire serving a higher function. One has to wonder if the question arises again in light of the abuses at Abu Grahib prison and the reprisal beheadings in the Middle East.

 

As far as media, I believe that violence is reflected as well as reinforced (glorified?).

 

Kulturkampf--what would Frank Zappa say?

[willstrickland]

I took away a completely different meaning from the babysmasher website than the two sides in this pissing match.

 

Did any of you investigate the rest of the Babysmasher site?

Go and read the "Lies" page. The message to me was twofold:

 

1. Baby changing stations are unsanitary and pose a public health risk. (You might as well be smashing them because using those stations is going to expose them to disease and/or make them sick)

 

2. We as a society have a major problem with children out of wedlock/single parent families. Call for birth control, responsible parenting, or restoration of the sanctity and reverence of a marriage.

 

Yes, they are using some indefensible "humor" to convey the message. But read this quote from their "lies" page and tell me if you get the same meaning that I outlined above:

 

Corporate America is lying to you - the fact is, the use of Baby Smashers as "baby changing stations" is endangering our health. The unsanitary nature of using a publicly accessible device to change the dirty diapers of babies should be an obvious red flag to the average consumer. However, it seems as if big business has managed to pull the wool over our fine country's eyes yet again. Disease and filth are inadvertently being spread throughout the adult population via urine and fecal matter residue left on Baby Smashers by those using them as "baby changing stations". While one of the obvious advantages of the nation-wide installation of Baby Smashers is population control - this spread of disease to adults is an unwanted side effect. Furthermore, as the number of children born out of wedlock continues to remain high, and the number of children born to unfit, uncapable parents does the same -- we at BabySmasher.com feel it is time to alert more of the general public to the existence and use of Baby Smashers. Please, contribute to society's education on this matter and order now!

[Al_Pine]

From that quote it looks to me like the guy (?) is just some germaphobe who doesn't want babies changed in the same bathroom that he uses. Would he rather corporate america had everyone change their babies on the sink?

 

Note that it reads, "Disease and filth are inadvertently being spread throughout the adult population." Sounds like an intolerant fuck who doesn't like to have to smell poop when he goes in the bathroom.

 

I can see how some of you might object to "Baby On Board" signs by virtue of them being chestbeating. I fuckin' hate it when people are proud of stuff and proclaim it to the world. Everyone should just shut up and hide and not talk about themselves. Please don't impose any communication upon me because it is such a waste of my valuable time.

[arlen]

I have a feeling that even after all the changing stations are eradicated, that dude still won't get laid.

[Al_Pine]