Get over it

I think we all need to a little bit more thick-skinned.

I read today that an ESPN columnist got in trouble and has been suspended for using a reference to Hitler in a column about the Boston Celtics.

Columnist Jemele Hill was trying to be funny when she wrote recently that rooting “for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It's like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.” People got upset, she had to apologize, ESPN apologized, and now she’s suspended.

Come on. There’s nothing wrong with what she wrote, except that it’s not funny. But being unfunny is hardly an actionable offense. If it were, Dane Cook would have been in jail long ago.

She was making a joke. She didn’t say that anybody on the Celtics looked like Hitler, or was as despicable as Hitler, or sought to exterminate an entire race of people and invaded Poland under flimsy circumstances. That would be different.

And I know, nothing Hitler did was amusing, and he probably wasn’t a particularly funny guy. I doubt he started his meetings with Goebbels and Himmler and Speer by saying, “Hey, did you hear the one about the priest, the midget and the librarian at the book burning?” Though I bet if he ever did tell a joke, they all laughed like it was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. The same thing happens in CEO’s offices all across America.

I’ve used the occasional Hitler reference, and I don’t think it’s inappropriate. For example, if somebody is trying to point out something good about somebody who’s done something bad, I retort with “Well, Hitler made the trains run on time,” or, “Even Hitler had a puppy.”

By the way, that always disturbs me the most about Hitler. Ever seen those color films of him up there at his nice house in the Alps, and he’s relaxing with the beautiful scenery in the background, and a dog comes up to him and he’s leaning down, petting the dog on his head. There’s no sound on these films, and I’ve always wondered if he was down there saying stuff to the dog like, “Hey, boy, you’re a good dog, aren’t you boy?” Then he looks over his shoulder to one of his henchmen and says, “Is the plan progressing?” Then he goes back to the dog and scratches him under the neck and says “Oh, my puppy likes that, don’t you boy?” Then he looks back over his shoulder and snaps to the Nazi officer, “You will execute the plan or you will be shot!” Then the dog licks his funny moustache. Creepy.

I digress, but I just think we all need to relax. If you don’t like what Jemele Hill writes, don’t read it. If you don’t like what Don Imus says, don’t listen. If you’re bothered by Rush Limbaugh, change the radio channel. If you can’t stomach Keith Olbermann, watch a different TV show.

People are just too eager to be offended. How boring will life be if nobody ever says or writes anything controversial? Abraham Lincoln said controversial things. So did George Washington and Winston Churchill. Even Jesus rankled a few folks in his day. Like he said, sometimes you just have to turn the other cheek – and get over yourself.