Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Ben Carson: Pompeii Victims Should Have Outrun Lava
(It's from Andy Borowitz /satire/ )
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Citizens of the Roman town of Pompeii who were victims of Mt. Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 A.D. could have survived if they had “just outrun the lava,” the neurosurgeon Ben Carson told Fox News on Wednesday.
“Most of the plaster casts we have of Pompeii victims show them basically just lying down and whatnot,” he said. “If I had been in Pompeii and I heard Mt. Vesuvius erupting, you can bet I would have made a run for it.”
He said another option open to residents of Pompeii would have been “to fight the volcano.”
“Archeologists estimate that the population of Pompeii was about eleven thousand,” he said. “You can’t tell me that if eleven thousand people put their minds to it they couldn’t beat one volcano.”
Carson said he would spend the next week on the campaign trail dispensing helpful tips about how people can defeat earthquakes, tsunamis, and giant asteroids.
“Most of the plaster casts we have of Pompeii victims show them basically just lying down and whatnot,” he said. “If I had been in Pompeii and I heard Mt. Vesuvius erupting, you can bet I would have made a run for it.”
He said another option open to residents of Pompeii would have been “to fight the volcano.”
“Archeologists estimate that the population of Pompeii was about eleven thousand,” he said. “You can’t tell me that if eleven thousand people put their minds to it they couldn’t beat one volcano.”
Carson said he would spend the next week on the campaign trail dispensing helpful tips about how people can defeat earthquakes, tsunamis, and giant asteroids.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/ben-carson-pompeii-victims-should-have-outrun-lava?intcid=mod-most-popular
14 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I put in the very first line of the post that it was an Andy Borowitz column, and in case you didn't know who he was I clarified it by marking it as /satire/
That said, it's not a huge stretch of Carson's philosophy to envision him saying this. 
It's stupid, I know, but so is his real comments about rushing the shooter. Would he suggest that the 6-year-olds in Sandy Hook should have rushed the shooter? That's what made his actual comment so outrageous.
