I love "The Onion" and am glad to see its articles included in Global Museum.  (I also love "Global Museum," BTW.)  Our profession has a
disturbing tendency to take itself far too seriously, and it is good to periodically puncture the pomposity.

(Also, while the exact situation described in the Onion article almost certainly never happened, it is just as certain that similar incidents happen
every day.  How many people enter my institution just to use the bathroom, go to the gift shop or cafeteria, or just to get out of the weather?
Quite a few.)

That being said, The Onion's parodies are often so dead-on that there may be some value in identifying their humor as such.  A few months ago,
The Onion published a story about Congress threatening to leave Washington and move to Nebraska (I think), unless D.C. built them a better
capitol.  An obvious satire on professional sports teams in America which threaten to relocate unless their city builds them a better stadium.
Well, a newspaper in China, unaware of the joke, picked up the story and ran it as real news.  When American colleagues tried to let them in on
the joke, they defensively replied, "How do you know it's not true?"

Come to think of it, that's actually funnier than the original piece...

Eugene Dillenburg
Exhibit Developer
Science Museum of Minnesota

"Anyone who love sausages, the law, or exhibits should never watch any of them being made."

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