Some light Thanksgiving humor

What better way to bring the family together around the turkey than a joke or two … about corrupt politicians in distant countries? I’ve read the following joke now in a number of forms, about a number of countries. Reader Mgcarbeezy sends us the Kenyan version, but I’ve also seen Nigerian and Indian ones: A ...

561614_mush2.jpg
561614_mush2.jpg

What better way to bring the family together around the turkey than a joke or two ... about corrupt politicians in distant countries?

What better way to bring the family together around the turkey than a joke or two … about corrupt politicians in distant countries?

I’ve read the following joke now in a number of forms, about a number of countries. Reader Mgcarbeezy sends us the Kenyan version, but I’ve also seen Nigerian and Indian ones:

A Kenyan politician goes to the U.S. to visit his counterpart. When the senator invites him over for dinner, the minister is very impressed by the lavish mansion and grounds and the costly furnishings. He asks, "How can you afford all this on a meager senator’s salary?" The senator smiles knowingly and takes him to the window.

"Can you see the river?" the senator asks.

"Yes"

"Can you see the bridge over it?"

"Of course," says the Kenyan minister.

"10 percent," the senator says smugly.

Some time later, the senator has occasion to return the visit. The Kenyan minister lavishes all hospitality on him. When they come to his house, the American is stunned by the minister’s huge palace, glittering with precious art, his hundreds of servants, and so forth. "How can you possibly afford this, on a salary paid in shillings?" he asks. The minister calls him to the window.

"See the river over there?"

"Sure," says the senator.

"Can you see the bridge over it?"

The senator looks, is confused — he doesn’t see anything. He peers more closely and says, "No, I don’t see any bridge."

"100 percent!" says the minister.

Here’s another one, from reader Strategic Discourse, from Pakistan:

Gen. Musharraf is getting a haircut, when all of a sudden the barber asks, "So General, when are you holding elections?" Musharraf is enraged, but he decides to keep quiet, thinking he must’ve heard something wrong.

The next time he visits the same barber, and during a haircut, the barber asks, once again, "So president, when are we having elections?" Musharraf is mighty pissed, but decides to give the barber one last chance.

During the next haircut, however, the barber asks the same question and Musharraf flies into a fit of rage and orders the man to be killed immediately. Just as the guards pull out their guns, the barber falls at Musharraf’s feet and pleads, "But sir, I was just doing my job. It’s so much easier to cut your hair when it stands on end — as it does whenever you hear the word ‘election.’"

And, for old times’ sake, a Cold War-era gem from Finland, from reader Markku Y, who explains that Finnish President Urho Kekkonen was known for his particularly welcoming attitude toward the Soviets:

Brezhnev once called Kekkonen in the ’70s, while Prime Minister Sorsa was sitting next to him.

"Da, da, da, da, da, da, njet, da, da, da, da," said Kekkonen during the phone call.

After Kekkonen hung up, Sorsa asked him, surprised and horrified, "What did you say ‘njet’ to?"

"He asked if I ever got tired of saying ‘da’!"

As always, we can’t get enough of these, so please continue to post more in the comments section and we promise to run the best in our Jan/Feb issue of the magazine.

Britt Peterson is a contributing editor and columnist for Washingtonian magazine, as well as a freelancer for the New York Times Book Review, Slate, and Elle. Previously, she was an editor at Foreign Policy, where she oversaw the magazine’s culture section. Twitter: @brittkpeterson

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