Desperately Seeking Humor

It gets harder and harder to find anything humorous to write about in the events of the day. Irony, on the other hand, is ubiquitous. For example, Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, who has worked for years to increase the numbers of guns in the hands of everyone including the mentally ill and terror suspects on FBI no-fly lists, in schools, in shopping malls and movie theaters, in churches, now refuses to hold town hall meetings with his constituents for fear of being shot. The layers of irony are deep. * * * * * * * * * *Another example of irony I saw was that J. Lord Dampnut, who campaigned on rebuilding infrastructure cancelled federal grant money for a high speed train project in California. * * * * * * * * * There is irony in "fake news." The term itself is subversive and destabilizing. Undermining the "not fake news" media is the strategy of authoritarianism. Engendering distrust of "news" bolsters the propagandist's goal of promulgating helpful "fake news." One result is a population more afraid of fake threats than real threats. Anti-muslim, anti-semitic sentiments are being promoted and inflamed and stochastic terrorism is occuring on a regular basis. The murder of Indian-Americans in Kansas City this week is an example. Threats directed towards Jewish Community Centers and Muslim mosques are on the increase. The president's executive order on banning Muslim immigration targeted seven countries who never sponsored or launched a terrorist attack on America. A citizen in the United States is more likely to be shot by a toddler than a terrorist. * * * * * * * * * ** The issue of "fake news" is of such magnitude that colleges and universities are including the issue in teaching circle discussions and developing resources for teachers. My own school, Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, recently sponsored such a teaching circle discussion. The use of social media for promulgating "fake news" is now ubiquitous. J. Lord Dampnut's use of Twitter to dispatch his mendacity is well noted. From the size of his rallies to the size of his hands (and other anatomical features), J. Lord tweets prolifically, and faster than fact-checkers can respond. And most of his supporters ignore the fact-checking. * * * * * * * * * My use of the anagram, J. Lord Dampnut, is subversive, in a small way. I do not recognize him as the legitimate president of the United States. He conspired with Russia and the FBI to interfere in the election, spreading misinformation, suppressing facts, on a magnitude heretofore unseen, and won the election with a minority of the popular vote, after which he proclaimed a huge victory and a mandate to deconstruct the US government. The Orwellian, Hellerian, Vonnegut-esque, Kafkaesque world of current truth-denial is breathtaking. President Obama was a good-hearted, self deprecating man with a sense of humor. J. Lord Dampnut is mean-spirited, arrogant, prick whose idea of a joke is mocking a handicapped reporter at a campaign rally. * * * * * * * * * * * I like to watch VEEP reruns on my netflix account at the end of the day. It is an Emmy winning HBO comedy that's been around since 2012. Set in the Vice-presidential offices, it combines wacky, bumbling characters doing wacky, bumbling stuff day after day, and is usually worth a good-for-the-soul belly laugh or two at the end of the day. * * * * * * * * But back to my mundane, circumscribed world. Yesterday, I went for a walk just as the weather was changing. From a light rain at the start, it turned to large frozen wind-driven pellets one of which struck the top of my right ear. My ears were quite cold and had that extreme sensitivity that comes from being that cold. Not yet cold enough to be numb, but rather that sweet-spot of pain sensitivity. That stung for several minutes. * * * * * * * * We had thunder and lightning last night in Papillion, Ne ---- in February. That's pretty rare. The cold front has finally moved a bit south and now we are having snow, much to the relief, I imagine, to all the Omaha area public school officials who cancelled classes today.