Guestblogger Arthur Goldwag is the author of "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more" and other books.
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My friends Christy Canida and Eric Wilhelm of Instructables dressed up their lovely daughter Corvidae as a three-armed happy mutant (!) baby! Naturally, they posted an Instructable about it:
This year we were a Nuclear Family for Halloween, with our 4-month-old daughter Corvidae dressed up as a 3-... More.
Mike Pusateri shows how he made bacon from pork belly.
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I knew that more economic development tends to mean smaller families, and I knew that people were having fewer children in many developing countries. But I hadn't grasped how quickly that shift was happening until I read this comparison from last Thursday's issue of The Economist:
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Image via Sandy Austin's Flickr
People always ask me what I like to do in Tokyo. What's fun? What's cool. Well here's my dirty secret. Most nights, I sit in my parents' living room and watch silly game shows while drinking green tea and eating persimmon. ... More.
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An extra leg would be interesting too. If no one notices, you could kvetch about how hard it is to find Huggies with three leg holes.
If they had twins, they could have stuck them into a single outfit to make one two-headed baby.
Let me just say, Corvidae is an awesome name for a kid. And that's a brilliant costume.
Imagine how good a kid with a real physical disability and her parents would have felt upon running into this trendy "3-armed mutant." I'm sure they would have seen the humor and who knows, maybe even felt a special affinity for the subtle creativity on parade here.
Next year why not try something even more challenging, like anencephaly. That's another really hip and funny problem some babies are born with.
Because life is better without humor.
Nah, a costume with three legs will just make the kid look...er...genetically lucky.
When a disabled child laughs at her own "disability," for want of a better word, that's humor that makes something better. I think it's fair to say that if you're going to make illness or suffering the butt of a joke, it's pretty much only funny if it's directed at yourself (as in, if you have the affliction yourself).
Would it be funny if they thew on some blackface and dressed their baby as a starving Ethiopian? How about a crack baby? Is it funny if my middle school student dresses up like a Down's syndrome kid for Halloween?
I'd genuinely love to hear how that kind of humor makes anybody's life better.
Well, I've been edified. Thank you, Der, for showing me the shame of laughing at that photo.
BTW, is your nick making a mockery of slow people?
I find your comment about crack babies to be insulting and insensitive. And no, I am not kidding, and I am not mocking your political correctness. Your stigmatizing of children of crack-using parents is hurtful and wrong. Stop it please.
I and the NAATAP* stand with you.
*National Association for the Advancement of Three-Armed People
I'm just up in arms over this.
It's perfect for ski-boxing.
Meet my semi-half-brother Zaphod. We share three of the same mothers.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13046061/
Seriously, how many kids are born with three arms? I'd wager a lot more are born with anencephaly and Down's syndrome. A three-armed child must be the least likely birth defect, and therefore unlikely to offend many people.
"I think it's fair to say that if you're going to make illness or suffering the butt of a joke, it's pretty much only funny if it's directed at yourself (as in, if you have the affliction yourself)."
Really? Things are only funny if they happen to yourself personally? That's a pretty narrow definition of funny.
>Really? Things are only funny if they happen to yourself personally? That's a pretty narrow definition of funny.
Let's suppose you have a debilitating illness or condition that I don't have. Maybe you have three arms, maybe you're paralyzed from the waist down, maybe you're immunodeficient. When you make a joke about it, you might well succeed in being funny. When I make a joke about it, say by dressing up like someone with your condition for Halloween, I'm just an ass.
That's my point.
Back in the 80s, when we used to have patients who stayed in the hospital for months or even years, sometimes the nurses would dress up as their long-term patients for Halloween. The patients always thought that it was pretty funny. But, everything's funny with enough Demerol on board.
Yes, if you chose to make a joke of someone by dressing up like them then yes you are an ass. If your intent is not to make it a joke then I would say there's a pretty good chance you aren't an ass. The baby in the photo isn't an ass and I bet her parents aren't either.
Life isn't black and white, I don't see why you would want to act like it is.
Laugh more, hate less. You'll find it gives you the energy to make the world more wonderful.
I'm just an ass.
Thank you for clearing that up for us.
Der, I don't have any special knowledge of disabilities, so I'm happy to be proved wrong here, but I think having a baby with three arms is so extremely rare that it's unreasonable to assume it will offend.
The thing is, you can look at anything and find someone who you could argue *might* be offended by it. Doesn't mean that they will be, though.
Can you show me some evidence that it's a common enough disability for people to have even heard of it, let alone be offended by this?
A quick google brings up one case, in china, for which the doctors are quoted as saying "His case is quite peculiar. We have no record of any child with such a complete third arm".
Like I said, happy to be educated here.
MY first thought upon seeing this; looks like a Motie...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God%27s_Eye#Motie_physiology
BTW, love the child's name; Corvidae.
How could you make a concern troll costume that people would get? Troll wrapped in a wet blanket?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13046061/
If I were born like that, I'd hope my parents wouldn't let me have surgery but let me learn to juggle instead.
"Would it be funny if they threw on some blackface and dressed their baby as a starving Ethiopian?"
We're equating having a third arm with being black and poor? I think *that's* pretty awkward.
Next we'll accuse Halloween werewolves of mocking those with hypertrichosis.
This year for halloween I dressed up as somebody who didn't dress up for halloween.
Oh, the complaints I got that I was mocking people who didn't dress up for halloween.
:::sigh:::
Of course, they were right.
Isn't this poor child already sufficiently socially disadvantaged by virtue of being named "Corvidae?" Seriously people, stop with the ridiculous baby names. It's not cute or clever. It's setting your child up for a lifetime of "No, really, what's your name?" and general dismissiveness by prospective employers and boyfriends/girlfriends.
Thats so Corvidae
She can always call herself "Cori" when she rebels from her parents geeky upbringing.
Hey - I named my youngest son Zaphod, and so far he seems to be a perfectly well-adjusted two-and-a-half-year-old. Hasn't shown any signs of Columbine disorder. I figure on giving him a few years and than maybe having him evaluated again.
Wish I'd thought of this costume, for Halloween though. The best part would be sitting back to see who gets the joke. Obviously not Der or dougr650...
Isn't anyone here worried that you're ability to type these inane comments is offensive to those without fingers? Tsk Tsk.