New Yorker piece from 2011, titled "Laughing at the Dead" at https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/laughing-at-the-dead https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy

New Yorker piece from 2011, titled "Laughing at the Dead" at https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/laughing-at-the-dead https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/laughing-at-the-... > Can we laugh now at Osama bin Laden? We always could have, and should have; it is harder to be scared or cringing when you are dissolving in laughter. A joke can be a powerful counter-terrorism measure. For Exhibit A, see the collection of post-September 11th cartoons that Bob Mankoff, our cartoon editor, has put together. Which leads the question of what "in cold blood" means. "In a ruthless and unfeeling manner, particularly as applied to first-degree murder committed without provocation and with malice aforethought." says Wiktionary. For bin Laden the killing was with feeling and was revenge for the 9/11 attacks, so not in cold blood. OTOH, we don't know if there was provocation for the NYC killing. FWIW, New Yorker also made jokes about JFK's death, quoting https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-humor-in-the-j-f-k-conspiracy https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-humor-in-... > The brute facts of the killing, filtered through the lasting obsessiveness that they’ve inspired, had become funny unto themselves—as the late New Yorker cartoonist Leo Cullum showed in 1994