Senior Jon Harbeck came under fire yesterday failing to maintain an expression of solemn respect throughout the entirety of ‘Auschwitz: Lessons Learned’, a special presentation put on by the Stanford History Department. Somber event administrators characterized Harbeck’s behavior as ‘flippiant’ and ‘entirely disrespectful’.
University officials investigating the incident revealed that thirty minutes into the incredibly depressing symposium, Harbeck accessed a laptop computer and opened an e-mail from his girlfriend that had the subject heading “HAHA”. The picture was of a baby raccoon wearing a baseball cap.
“Yeah, I giggled when I saw the raccoon, I’ve gotta admit,” said an abashed Harbeck, now accused of Antisemitism. “So I do wanna stress that I wasn’t laughing at The Holocaust. The Holocaust was bad. Really bad.”
But pictures of raccoons could not explain his behavior during the joyless round-table discussions that followed. Gloomy witnesses say that Harbeck broke out into spontaneous chuckles during the remainder of the morbid event, trying unsuccessfully to stifle the laughter with his hand. Subsequent interrogation revealed that he had thought of the phrase “LOLocaust” and found it humorous.
“It just seemed like it was out of my control,” Harbeck mused sadly. “LOLocaust got me thinking about lolcats and it was all downhill from there. Hover Cat was sure to get a smile even though we were supposed to be discussing mass graves. And ‘I can has cheezburger’ is comedic gold wherever, whenever.”
Harbeck has been banned from future conferences on global warming, female genital mutilation, and the genocide in Darfur.
