Posted in Humor, Politics and Society, tagged irony, NPR, Occupy Wall Street on November 5, 2011 | 10 Comments »
My local NPR station mingled its glowing Occupy Wall Street coverage over the last few weeks with a pledge drive. A few days ago, I heard the station manager declare the drive at an end. Then she noted that fully a quarter of the drive’s funding came from “corporate sponsors.” She thanked them profusely.
Now that the pledge drive has finished, NPR can return to singing the praises of anti-corporate protesters.
Posted in Language and Literature, Religion, tagged Atonement, Book of Mormon, irony, Jesus Christ, rhetoric on July 24, 2011 | 5 Comments »
3 Nephi 27:14 is one of the more rhetorically clever verses in the Book of Mormon. It features an ironic parallelism that explains the point of the Atonement while emphasizing its apparent absurdity.
And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil—
The part in bold is what’s so impressive. There are several other passages in scripture that speak of Christ being “lifted up” in crucifixion, and a few of those link that with the salvation of mankind, but this verse uses the phrase “lifted up” twice, first to describe the sacrifice of the life of Jesus Christ, and then to summarize the Father’s ultimate goal of saving mankind.
Posted in Education, Humor, tagged irony on November 21, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Remind students at the beginning and end of class every day for two weeks that there will be a test, give them a flier as a reminder, write it on the board, and post it on the school website, and when the day comes, they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. “What? There’s a test? Why didn’t you tell us?”
But ask them when their days off school are this year, and they’ll know, off the top of their heads, every single one, months in advance, with no reminders at all.
Posted in Humor, Random, tagged computers, irony on November 15, 2010 |
Every silly little thing you do on a computer will be preserved permanently and come back to embarrass you dozens of years from now, but anything truly important that you’re working on is liable to fall victim to some accident that deletes it from the universe forever! How does this electronic machine know to save your grungy college pictures somewhere, but to crash just as you’re finishing that big report for your boss?
Posted in Humor, tagged Arts Factory, BratWorks, business parks, Cheesecake Factory, Ethel M. Chocolate Factory, irony, Old Spaghetti Factory, Sushi Factory, Tan Factory on November 23, 2009 | 3 Comments »
What does this say about our modern age? Las Vegas, like most big cities, is home to:
Alongside all of these, we also have dozens of office-oriented mini-malls called “business parks.”
So, contemporary urban cityscapes are places where one can find art and junk food at factories, but financial transactions take place in ugly concrete-and-stucco parks. Weird.
Posted in Humor, tagged Deseret Book, irony, journals on November 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Several years ago, I bought this binder at Deseret Book to hold pages for my journal. If you can’t read the Bible verse on the cover, it’s Isaiah 30:8, which says, “Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.” Seems like a pretty appropriate verse, right?
Then I actually read Isaiah chapter 30. In context, that verse is the Lord telling Isaiah to keep a carefully detailed record of rebellious Israel’s sins, so that future generations might know that God was justified in destroying the wicked.
And this is supposed to inspire us to want to keep a journal of what we do in our lives?
Posted in Humor, Religion, tagged guide to stuff, irony, Mormons on November 13, 2008 | 5 Comments »
For the last few weeks, my friend Steve and I have been putting together a new blog poking fun at the foibles of Mormon society (target of our first entry: the tendency of Mormons to poke fun at the foibles of Mormon society–because what the world really needs now is more self-referential irony.)
It’s starting to pick up steam (I’m told Eric Snider liked it, but I can’t document that until I finish hacking his hard drive, and I can’t do that until I figure out how to turn on my computer by myself), so start checking it out now so you can tell your friends that you were a fan of it before the authors went insane with fame and power and got blown up in that terrible silly string incident at Toys R’ Us.
