"To lampoon somebody's death after the event is grossly insensitive. . . It's too soon.'' John Beyer of Media Watch U.K.

I've been following the controversy surrounding the South Park episode in which the Crocodile Hunter appears with a stingray protruding from his chest.

In the episode, Satan is hosting a Halloween party. At one point a guest informs Satan that somebody is dressed in a Steve-Irwin-impaled-by-a-stingray costume and it's offending the guests. Satan confronts the man (who turns out to be Irwin) and says, "Dude, the Crocodile Hunter thing? It's too soon. You gotta go."

Naturally, the Australians are bent. They believe South Park mocked their messiah. They may not have rioted like the Muslims did when their messiah got mocked (even Aussies aren't that bovine) but they sure did get snarky about it. From the press, the bloggers, the watchdog groups to the man on the street, they all pretty much shared the same sentiment: It's just too soon: As if there is some specific time when it will be permitted to mock the King of Crocodiles.

As if there was some formula concerning how many days must pass before lampooning certain tragedies.

As if that formula should be determined by official decree; so that when it is finally ok to mock the Crocodile King, military trucks with giant speakers on their hoods will drive down all the mainstreets of the world bellowing, "Attention residents! It is permissable to joke about the Croc Hunter now," like a "radiation levels are normal" announcement after a nuclear event.

It's obvious this has all really offended the Aussies. Clearly they consider Irwin to be a messiah of sorts and therefore off limits to satire; even though the person they chose as messiah is the most annoying, easily-satirized, hyperactive, diminutive, animal-loving nutbucket allowed on television since Tony Little came out with his exercise Gazelle.

Question: How did the Crocodile Hunter ever make it to messiah status? He wears Khaki shorts and hiking books with white socks? You can't be messiah wearing shorts, hiking books and tube socks! A messiah is supposed to wear long flowing robes and open-toed sandals and say things like, "Let all the children come unto me," not "Crikey, I think a dingo bit my bum!"

Despite all this, they chose the Croc Hunter as their prophet and you damn well better not mock him. Not that Australians are any more sensitive about their messiahs than the rest of us. All groups have this mentality. The mentality that it's ok to laugh at other group's messiahs but not for them to laugh at yours: Americans, Europeans, Asians, Arabs, politicians, artists, athletes, atheists, Christians, comics, cops, lawyers - shit even stoners have been know to go fisticuffs over Jerry Garcia fat jokes while having no problem calling Ted Nugent a bloodthirsty fascist hatemongering Bambi killer.

It is similar to the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality except I call it NOMMY (Not On My Messiah, Yo) because the joke is funny when the joke is on your messiah but when it's on mine, well that's just wrong.

Thing is, the South Park joke is not on Irwin. It had nothing to say about him either way. The joke is on us. The joke is on our tornado of political correctness awareness. The joke is that political correctness is considered such an evil in this world, it offends even Satan: Here we have The Prince of Darkness, The Antichrist, The Dark Angel, The Cloven-Hooved Goat Humper, The Overlord of Evil and Disease and Murder and Ass Rape and File Sharing - worried that it's too soon to wear a Croc Hunter costume.

The joke is about how deeply the joke is going to offend and look how their premonition came true as the offended of the world all hollered, "Too soon, too soon!"

Remember when Gilbert Gottfried tried to tell 9/11 jokes at The Friar's Club just a few days after the attacks? The crowd turned on him. Et tu Friars Club? They hissed and booed. Some people yelled, "Too soon, too soon!" causing Gottfreid to abandon the material and move into a safer, less offensive routine called The Aristocrats which features a father banging all the members of his family in a pool of excrement and I really just want to know, who the Hell are you to say when it's too soon?

Too soon is personal man. One man's too soon is another man's too late. For me, there is no such thing as too soon. I probably would have laughed at a September 11 joke on September 11 if somebody had fallen out of shock long enough to have uttered one. It's not because I'm insensitive. Humor is how I deal. I mourned on 9/11 too you know. And now I mourn the Croc Hunter. Not necessarily because he's the Croc Hunter, but because he's dead: He was once a person, now he's not, therefore I grieve for him. And I grieve for his family. I grieve for the families of those who died that we never heard about. I grieve for those who are dead now and those who are next and those who are next next. I grieve for you and I grieve for me - all of us - and this bullshit lifespan we were given, this asswipe of a lifespan, this prick-tease of a lifespan, this blink-your-eye-and-poof-it's-all-gone existence that binds us all. That's why I make jokes. So I can deal. So go fuck a too soon. Everyone can decide for themselves when that is.