Reporter and writer. I cover energy, climate change and geopolitics. Contact me via my website www.alexanderckaufman.com and subscribe to kaufman.nyc.

These are actual images from Iran before the revolution. 

I want to be clear to everyone -- a roomful of East Asian women in bathing suits is clearly not from this era. It was a screenshot of a crass joke satirizing how critics of the regime or of the government in Afghanistan pass around images from the past of women dressed in ways that wouldn't be tolerated by Islamist governments today. I'm surprised by how many of you took it seriously, and I'm sorry if that caused any offense; I thought it was obvious parody.

Reporter, writer and analyst. I cover energy, climate change and geopolitics. Contact me via my website www.alexanderckaufman.com and subscribe to kaufman.nyc.

Is this Cicero quote in reference to how the dumb memes that circulate these days and eroded our social fabric?

in reference to the fact that you have to explain rather obvious jokes