I think the difference for me is what the jokes are about. If they are about Bin Laden, or revenge, they seem to be less provocative because they are about "them". I still wouldn't tell them, but it seems that people are a little less offended by those, me included. When the jokes have to do with the tragedy itself, the rubble, the planes or the victims, I can't handle that. I'm not the kind to try quieting the ones telling the jokes. I simply walk away. But I feel that if I couldn't bring myself to tell the joke to one of the family members of the victims, I probably shouldn't tell it at all. Someone used the example of Good Morning Viet Nam either in this thread or the other one on this subject as an example of humor about a clearly non-funny issue. The difference is, the setting may have been in Viet Nam, but none of the jokes were about the dead.

I agree, we need the humor, I respect the right of those to tell the jokes, but we all need that humor in different doses. Some are more ready than others....

Frank