Over at the Mormon-themed blog By Common Consent, a few of the merry jesters occasionally do a feature where they read items from the Police Beat column in the BYU newspaper and make fun of them. Which is what everyone who reads Police Beat does, of course; these guys just do it online, for everyone to read.
I was their special guest this week, and you can read the transcript of our observations here. Be forewarned: Some of the talk is fairly PG. I also made a joke about rape, which apparently some people don’t think is funny. Which is news to me! But they went back and bleeped that part after some of the readers complained, replacing it with “do something highly objectionable.” Is that all rape is? “Highly objectionable”? The people on “Law & Order: SVU” always make it out to be a lot worse than that. Huh.
Anyway: Enjoy the Police Beat Roundtable! And be sure to scold me for making jokes about taboo things!
Ah, the Police Beat. Is it wrong to be proud of the fact that I wrote for it during a Spring term? It was years ago, but I still remember two incidents. The first was regarding a teenage kid who got busted at EFY for groping his dance partner. I believe he was sent home and his Bishop was informed of the incident. You have to watch out for those EFY kids (For those that aren’t LDS, during summer months, BYU hosts a week long social/spiritual program called Especially for Youth for teenagers).
The second was a report of two BYU students that stole gnomes from outside a store in Salt Lake. One of the “perps” contacted me after it was published and told me I had the story all wrong. I explained that I only used the information contained in the police report and told him I would be happy to interview him about it to set the record straight. He declined.
My personal favorite from last year: A baby cougar was reported prowling around campus near the RB. When the police showed up no evidence of a baby cougar was found, but a large, yellow tabby cat was found prowling the suspected area.
Eric: The “false information” he provided to the police officer was “about 8 inches.”
That line had me rolling on the floor!!!
I’m not one to think that something really objectionable is funny.
I really enjoyed a majority of it…who hasn’t mocked police beat. It demands to be mocked…trail jumping.honestly
Yeah, it seems fishy to me that you can’t make a joke about rape, but the comment cited by Ben C. was perfectly okay. Funny stuff though.
I can’t believe how bent out of shape so many people got over a joke. Of course I’ve never attended BYU either. Good crap that kind of righteousness has to get annoying.
I move that this feature be repeated using letters from the Daily Universe Reader’s Forum. All in favor?
Jokes about taboo things… that would have been inappropriate were it in the context of someone actually being raped. However, considering someone was offended about the mere mention of it being joked about just makes it funnier to me.
I think I’ll take the Police Beat seriously once it stops referring to minorities and people with facial hair as “suspicious” even AFTER it’s determined that they didn’t commit any crime.
I’ve gotta thank them for protecting us from your joke, Eric. Amidst a slew of drug references and other juvenile humor, making jokes about rape would be offensive to. . . people who have been raped, I guess.
“Dang it! I’d forgotten all about my rape and then Eric went and reminded me!”
It’s hardly even shock value humor at this point but the fact that you really spelled it out for the benefit of unambiguity is really funny.
I actually enjoyed the [doing something highly objectionable] tag. That maintains his privacy yet is funny.
Yeah, sorry about the bleeping. Not my idea! But I like to think that the bleeping was done in a tasteful, nay awesome way.