I don't think this is really a moral issue. But I put it in the ethics section just the same. It's about whether something is really funny. It involves an injustice that happened hundreds of years ago, indirectly. So all the people associated with it are gone. So laughing at it couldn't do harm by offending a relative or friend of the victim. As I said, the injustice part certainly isn't funny. But part of the story might be. I read about it in "A Witches' Bible" by Janet and Stewart Farrar. They talk about it in one chapter. For hundreds of years, witches have been reciting an incantation. It sounds like a legitimate incantation. And it basically goes "Abracadabra. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Hocus pocus. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" And someone finally figured it out. During the witch hunt of the Middle Ages, they were trying to get information from an alleged witch. And he figured if he told them something they'd want to hear, they would stop. So he started reciting something that sounded authentic, almost like real Latin even. He probably was poor and uneducated though. But he was also in pain. So he said the Latin part. But he kept adding the ouch, ouch, ouch because he was in pain. Now I know the torture part is definitely not funny. But witches reciting ouch, ouch, ouch for years, without knowing why. Is that funny?
Also. I was wondering about this one too. I really don't know sometimes what's funny or not, or more correctly what people might find appropriate. But I know when I was still in HS, people found this story very funny. Especially us kids. When JFK was assassinated in Dallas November 22, 1963, a large piece of his skull landed on the back of the presidential limousine, right in front of his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy. And seeing what just happened, she thought it might be important. So she picked it up, and I guess rapped it in a napkin or something, and put it in her purse. Then the rest of the day, she kept taking it out and asking if anyone wanted it. The surgeon who tried to save JFK. The Secret Service too. Finally the coroner told her she could give it to him. But I think that story is more about how ditzy Jacqueline Kennedy was though, then about the assassination.
Will Rogers famously complained to his manager that audiences would only laugh at his stupid jokes if they contained the truth. Note, neither conservatives nor academics are famous for their sense of humor, because they prefer to censor the truth. Hitler made it illegal to crack jokes about the Nazi party, while the Three Stooges could have won an Oscar for their performance. In general, what is funny is whatever the Tea Party says is funny. For example, conservatives forced the networks to take the popular TV show "Soap" off the air, so if you really want to know what's funny, pay attention to what they hate.
