Tag: humor

caption contest, firefighters watching fire tornado

It’s even hotter than normal for August here in central Arkansas (as the last post so deftly explains), so I thought this week’s caption contest could have something to do with extreme heat.   I chose a picture of firefighters watching a fire tornado.  You get to write a caption explaining how this happened, or what the people are thinking, or what the cameraman is looking at instead of the fire tornado, or make up a story that’s somehow related to what’s happening in the photo.  Use your imagination…  see if you can surprise me…  🙂

(To see our other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)

caption contest, violinist in ocean

For our next weekly caption contest, let’s use a picture of a violinist playing his violin in the surf of the ocean.  The waves are splashing up around him, which doesn’t seem like a good thing for the violin, but that’s not our concern.  What we have to do is figure out what’s going on here.  Write a caption explaining why this man is playing his violin / fiddle in the ocean.  Or your perspective could be of someone watching this… or just commentary about it.  It can be whatever — just make it funny.

(To see our other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)

Jon Stewart on the economic collapse

There’s a video clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that I’ve been meaning to link to.  The topics discussed aren’t “breaking news” anymore, but they’re still relevant — such as America’s financial troubles caused by Wall Street firms.   If you haven’t seen this episode before, it’s worth watching.  This clip is only 10 1/2 minutes long.  (I will warn you that there’s a little bit of crude language, although most is beeped out.)

The first part is about a bipartisan financial reform bill that was in the works for 2 years, led by Chris Dodd and Bob Corker.  Eventually, Dodd decided to put out his own bill, which contained regulation that should’ve been implemented the day after the financial crisis began.   If you’re short on time, you can skip to around 4:20 of the video to get to the better part.

Jon Stewart explains why Lehman Brothers imploded, according to a bankruptcy examiner’s report, and he shows how Lehman Brothers hid their worthless junk holdings — some $50 billion.  And Citicorp did the same thing, and Goldman Sachs fueled AIG’s gambles.   And supposedly no one at Lehman Brothers is going to jail for what they did, even though they intentionally deceived everyone watching them by hiding $50 billion of worthless securities (which in some circles is considered fraud).

The best part of the video begins at 6:20, where Jon Stewart discusses the Supreme Court case that says corporations have the same rights as individuals.   So what if individuals had the same rights as corporations?  Jon Stewart puts it in perspective in a way only he can, and it’s classic.  Here’s the link:

The Daily Show: In Dodd We Trust

I don’t always watch The Daily Show, but sometimes it reports more on the important and controversial news than the full-time news networks, and Stewart makes it funny.  Humor is important at a time like this.  It can be very disheartening to see our country’s economy (and our freedoms) being destroyed from the inside out by large corporations, Congress, and the Obama administration.  Receiving that distressing news with some injected humor makes it a little easier to swallow.  (What’s the old song say — “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”)

caption contest, UDT scuba divers

Welcome to the next caption contest!  This week’s photo features scuba divers saluting someone, and their uniforms say UDT.   I don’t know what that means or what’s going on, but you get to fill in the details (or make up your own story altogether).

(To see our other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)