The Onion Jokes About Indian Call Centers And Malaria

Another publicity seeking cartoonist. Gods seem to save more cartonnist careers than any others...

This cartoon dint strike me as funny, in fact I found it rather serious and touching. There are many who goes about yelling BPO revolution and India Shining when we do have enough cases Malaria perhaps matching a poor African country.

I do not think Onion is very choosy about all this in term of political correctness, their take on Obama is: "Black Guy Asks Nation For Change"

Yeah, I can see where the cartoon is crass - but at least you guys are not rioting abut it - yet.

On the spot, Deepti :-)

Let's leave stinking Onions where they belong. There's more to thick skins than just this. Apparently, skin color matters despite what the Equalizers of the world say. I highly recommend Richard Crasta's "Impressing the Whites" to understand how this phenomenon still works.

To extend Arun's point a little, is the joke on Indian call centers born out of derision? If yes, the joke is NOT funny. Well, maybe I'm spinning a conspiracy theory but hey, who said "there are no facts, only interpretations?"

This "joke" was too much to take.
Stop! Enough jokes on India being the back office!!!

I hardly think this cartoon is merely about poking fun at our malaria. If you actually click on the link, the entire article reads as :

"Mired by rising poverty levels, polluted groundwater that threatens the lives of millions and a rapidly crumbling infrastructure, the nation of India has every intention of addressing these problems just as soon as it finishes telling midwesterners how to install Windows XP on their home computer."

For anyone who's ever read The Onion, it would be quite clear that this is more a commentary on Americans' blissful obliviousness to the "real" problems faced by the rest of the world as well as the irony of the the rest of the world telling America how to fix minor problems like installing Windows XP on a computer while being completely incapable of solving their own major problems.

Gawker is right. Unfortunately our billionaires have not yet tackled these problems. In India, when the government takes over a task that spells ruin for that case, eg the coal mines in West Bengal.
In America, the pharmaceutical and agricultural companies spend millions in research. Look at the benefits in biology alone, they have made so many fruits and vegetables immune to common dieases so that the yield is colossal compared to what it was before.

None of our billionaires are interested in promoting agriculture, though now a world crisis is looming over our heads.

Thankfully for us their tag line very correctly proclaims "Our Dumb World"

:)

Aditi,I am currently in a small world called Whoville;)

And the Onion is a boob..so there!!

Come on! Isn't there anything sacred anymore?

(I was talking about the Onion).

btw, that Jesus line was funny too.

cheers,
asuph.

point well made!!!

Well, i dont think this joke deserved to be looked at from a i'm-insulted-prism; its coming from the onion for god's sake, so be ready for anything!

But just on the humour scale, this wasnt funnny - cuz if they wanted to poke fun of the whole god or malaria or call centre, then this doesn't fit. And thats all i would bother about - lame joke. I'm going to stick my neck out and say that the joke could have actually been changed to focus on the population problem. So Krishna (instead of vishnu) would be answering the call, with all his 'consorts'(?!)around him, saying - 'Please hold, I'm a little busy right now... 16000, 16001, 16002! :)
My joke's even lamer eh?! Damn! Your jesus line was a little more funny though - dont ask me why!

Guess thats the thing with humor- matter of perspectives :)

"If freedom of speech means anything at all, it is the freedom to say things that people do not want to hear"
-George Orwell

Freedom of Speech also gives the right to protest peacefully.

according to Prof CS the only freedom that should be cherished is the freedom to drink a 24 pack in peace

any incursion in that peace is unconstituitonal - so help you (----) insert the atheist's replacement for bhagwan!

Tempora(ri)l(y), I am off the wagon!

i thought so

unless you are mixing on and off

which is also understandable

;)

________________

off the wagon, Slang. again drinking alcoholic beverages after a period of abstinence.

on the wagon, Slang. abstaining from alcoholic beverages. Also, on the water wagon; British, on the water cart.

yep right you are about mixing "off" and "on" there....i could pretend too much senseless typing, not....as in this doggerel:

I could pretend I always knew
That "off the wagon" meant
I was off the brew
That I could be taught something new
Is something that I never knew

Temporal,

I am temporarily off/on the DC wagon for a while. No doubt I will suffer from severe withdrawal symptoms, but I will have to deal with them by simply lurking. It was fun while it lasted and I did enjoy it a lot. Sincere apologies to everyone whom I have inadvertently or advertently (no such word), insulted, rubbed the wrong way or even the right way (sounds perverse/hentai).

Take care folks!

Peace!

CS

eh common, what is the meaning of this?

SS,

Comes a time when my sabbatical is over and I have to attend to other things! The reality check! As no doubt you might have noticed, I am an obssessive person, like a dog that refuses to let go of the bone!! So, I'm letting loosening the grip on the bone! I will hang around, lurk, put in an assinine comment or two, but no real engagments or arguments! I love arguing too much but some "real" work suffers as a result!

Best wishes,

CS

alas, due to the millions of emails I rec'd urging me to hang on, i have decided to hang on for a while. I wait for the wild applause and the boos from Ruvy. the bad news: just minor inverventions, unless my friend Reuven wants to argue....

cs:

email me and will forward some emails for you begging to continue your errant ways - inebriation notwithstanding

temporal,

I'm ON the wagon!! (just doesn't sound right to me, so I'm OFF the beer-wagon) not sure of the temporal dimension of this state on non-inebriation though!