Inevitable pranks

Even if society were to decide that pranks should be forbidden, it would be impossible to enforce such a ban. So, one has to learn to live with pranks. And maybe even die...

A trivially-funny fake phone call to Kate Middleton's London hospital from an Australian radio station upset the nurse Jacintha Saldanha to the point of convincing her that life was no longer worth living.

Jeez, this poor woman must have had few profound survival values, reasons for believing in human existence, in Life (with a capital L). The celebrated Darwin Awards honor individuals who have "contributed to human evolution by self-selecting themselves out of the gene pool via death or sterilization due to their own (unnecessarily foolish) actions". I reckon that Jacintha merits this posthumous honor. Her courageous act of self-destruction has possibly cleansed our gene pool a little of future incentives to commit suicide because of the Windsors... who (in my humble opinion) don't really deserve such a silly sacrifice.

Above all, let's not be tempted to castigate the Aussie radio couple of 2Day FM: Mel Greig and Michael Christian.

They're talented professionals, and we must assume that they know what they're doing. If publicity revenues drop as a result of this incident, that must not be a pretext for casting aspersion upon Mel and Michael. It's in no way their fault if a certain dull lady in London couldn't support the weight of a prank, of humor. It goes without saying that I know nothing of Samantha. I'm therefore reduced to evaluating her psychology—dull lady?—uniquely through her stupendously silly act of suicide.

I hope that Mel/Michael will be back on board for the infinitely more oppressive Mayan-inspired events that the planet will be facing in a fortnight: the end of the universe. The radio couple would do well to look upon the Kate Middleton incident as a warmup to communications of all kinds concerning the forthcoming apocalypse. It would be a great idea if a big international channel such as CNN or the BBC were to hire the Mel/Michael team to put out global phone feelers to all kinds of folk (philosophers, pollies, nurses, royals, etc) on 21 December 2012, for feedback on our Final Evening. That would be great entertainment. Only the next day (if it were to come about) might Mel/Michael be sacked retrospectively for failure to have licked Windsor arses.