humor

Men, Money, and…Corruption?

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Spring is near and it is bringing with it a sense of humor. Thank God.

I stumbled across this quote from a 96 year-old man who sounds liberal, but truth often sounds liberal: “The world is a mysterious and confusing place. If you are not willing to be confused, you become a mere replica of someone else’s mind.” -Noah Chomsky.

How funny is that?

You may have read here, ad nauseum, Americans have gotten so smart about everything. Sadly, the less education you have the more you know as experts are overly educated and dangerous. Come on, we have a billionaire, reality TV star as President now. If that’s not funny…

Now, after the above quote and my newly recovered sense of humor, it makes sense why people being smart bothers me: they’re missing out on life and ruining it for the rest of us who are confused.

An earlier Steven Wright line (Dr. Steven Wirght, BTW) ties it together precisely: “A conclusion is the place where you get tired of thinking.”

Americans are really, really tired of thinking.

Here’s an exercise for us all. Find someone with your opposite views of the world and try to talk like them. Sean Hannity and Alina Habba have done it perfectly ironically in their latest remarks on Fox. Google it and watch them snicker about stupid “other people”. It’ll make you laugh so hard you’ll gag.

MAGAns will conclude who the Other People are. Democrats may conclude the opposite. And away we go. Conclusions.

There is merit in knowing how little you know, and you can make a living at it. Ask Christopher Lloyd who does it on purpose, and Sarah Palin. Wait, just Christopher. (All young people google Taxi.)

What does all this have to do with Men? And Money?

Our Capitalist monetary system makes it easy for greedy Men with no conscience to make tons of money off people who “reached conclusions”. Trump merchandising is an obvious example, but the Left’s examples are subtler, and just as pernicious. (A couple weeks ago, an email from The Harris “something” asking for money to pay off bills. There should be a charge for spam mail.)

And when Men make money, what do they do? They make more money. I had a good laugh this week when a news pundit said: “billionaires don’t care about making more money”. It’s funny because that is exactly what they do care about. I’d have been happy with the first million. But men are greedy. (Don’t ask, I know what you’re thinking. Blame J D Salinger and “A Perfect Day For Bananafish.” Do I have to say “google it” anymore? Aren’t you curious about how much you don’t know?)

The sad thing about greed is its ignorance of barriers. Men, again, take great delight in stepping over barriers, obliterating them, or in the modern case, re-defiling them, redefining them, I mean. One of our billionaire’s first firings were Inspector Generals in all Departments, the guys who were already investigating corruption. DOGE says they weren’t doing the job, right, I guess, so now Federal investigations into Trump are closed, as are the investigations into Musk, For good measure, Musk took out the CFPB and ended their investigations, as well.

I love the smell of Rooting Out Corruption early in a pre-spring morning. Humor. Pre-Spring hilarity. But not a single word about Corruption from DOGE. Is it just me or do you NOT hear the word, too? Waste, fraud, and abuse. By the billions. Corruption? None.

Most of the biggest scams in American History were perpetrated by men. Madoff. The Entire 2008 Financial Disaster. Tammany Hall. Enron. The Teapot Dome Scandal. Jim Jones.

Here’s another funny part: according to politicians welfare cheats are ruining our beloved country. And that damn Health Care for all idea…gotta go.

Maybe I google too much. Or I’m even dumber than I know I think I am…

Time for some conclusions.

It’s Been A Bad Year…Thanks, Mr. Wright!

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2025 has not been kind. Yet. It might be though, right? Eventually?

It began well with a great lead in from December: hip replacement surgery ended years of pain, cancer is in remission, and AMD is stopped in its tracks. Great end to 2024 and lead in to “The Next Year.”

Hip recovery went swimmingly but New York’s 2025 weather prohibited a normal “scale-up” of activities. Venturing into winter weather with a new hip was compounded by the worst winter weather in upstate NY in 60 years. Outdoor recreational mobility/recovery was DENIED, even as the maintenance gurus of the apartment complex–the salters, shovelers, skid-steer operators who, bless their hearts—did yeoman’s work scraping out a few minutes a day for safe walking. What exactly is a “yeoman”? Be right back.

Yeoman: “a man holding and cultivating a small, landed, estate” among other things listed in the Oxford Dictionary.  Lots more, too.

Shortened story: stuck inside for months with a good hip and nowhere to go. But I did find an antidote to the malaise 2025 is intent on dropping me into: The wise words of Dr. Steven Wright. (I awarded him an honorary degree.) Dr. Wright told me through the printed collection of his sayings “Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.”

Hm.

Then Trump took office. I made a new year’s resolution not to write about him, but he does so much…how did he get elected? Maybe, per the good doc, “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese”.  Think about it…

Dr. Wright: “Half the people you know are below average.” What? And an explanation: “82.47% of statistics are made up on the spot.” A concisely contemporary, pure propagation of punditry.

It’s concerning to me that our current political shenanigans don’t make me laugh, anymore. There must have been a very sad, recent shift in my attitude towards our political class. Un-humorous worry is a constant companion. Dr. Wright, help please?

““My mechanic told me, “I can’t repair you brakes so I made your horn louder.”” Note: Double quotation marks are grammatical, not ironic.

Perfect.

As a sidebar, he reminded me: “The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.”

Dr. Wright also helped me understand most of our current politicians, and how they can live with themselves: “A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

And for all of loyal, fanatical, know—it—all online Demoncrats and Repugnicans, “A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.”

No more politics. Back to me. New advice?

“The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up”, he offers.

Okay. I’m better. You?

Remember this, too, “Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.”

And if any of this did not make your day better, here’s consolation in Dr. Wright’s words: “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence you tried.”

Full disclosure: Steven Wright is not really a doctor, but he should play one on TV.

Next posting we will attempt to answer the age-old Wright question: “What is the speed of dark?”

Contributions and comments welcomed.

Lets Have Some Pun!

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The New Year Resolutions haven’t been going so well. Let’s talk about them later, okay? The first week of the New Year has not been kind to mental happiness as upstate NY suffered though a “lake effect” storm where someone (Mother Nature? God? The Buffalo Bills?) dropped snow on us every day, and blew it around like drunken confetti. We are still under a State Of Emergency prohibiting “unnecessary travel”. I watched the entire debacle from The Chair positioned in front of my huge apartment windows and enjoyed every second of the first few days. Now, in Day 6, it is time for necessary travel. Anywhere.

One last thing, people sure are interesting (30 percent?). One guy brushed snow off his car (it’s a northern thing) in his shorts. It was 6 degrees out and he didn’t last long. Another decided “no necessary travel” was not “no travel” and rocked his car back and forth in a parking lot drift until giving up and not coming back for two days. People did all sorts of strange things and the snow removing machines worked round the clock. Mother Nature just sent more.

So for Christmas I got a book and, yes, I read a lot when the parking action was slow. A lot. The book is titled: “Learn a Lot While You’re on the Pot”, by Jack Haynes. Without breaking a resolution, I’ll just say as we age, bowel movements seem to-how to say this–take their time. It’s a senior thing younger readers will learn eventually, but Mr. Haynes has capitalized on that “slowness” to offer a tidy book about all sorts of things. It’s 136 pages on 5 million (I exaggerate) subjects so it’s not comprehensive as much as pithy in its prose. It makes it easy to finish a topic or two before…you know.

My favorite sections is entitled : “Best Puns and Wordplay”. Let the games begin with an obvious groaner: “I once gave a performance about it Puns. It was just a play on words.”

Some puns only work when they are typed: “My friend became a vegetarian, even after I told him it was a big missed steak.” Say it out load to someone and they just stare at you. Like: “Once you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.” Or: “Did you hear about the explosion at the cheese factory? All that’s left is de-brie.”

Some are better spoken: “The future, the past, and the present walked into a bar. Things got a little tense.” You may have to wait for that spark of recognition on that one, but it’s worth it. Or: “I told my wife to embrace her mistakes and she gave me a hug.”

Sadly, there are some clunkers: “What do you call fake spaghetti? Im-pasta.” Ugh. “My son says he’s friends with only 25 letters of the alphabet, He doesn’t know y.”

Related: “My daughter said that after she ate alphabet soup she had a vowel movement.”

I’ll end this torture with my two favorites: “It’s been a terrible winter for Humpty Dumpty. But at least he had a great fall.” And, maybe not so much funny as apt: “I’ve discovered that where there’s a will, there’s a relative.”

Crap. One more: “Did you here about the toilet that was stolen from the Police Department? The cops have nothing to go on.”

Hope this helped any of those who were trapped at home with themselves, or even worse, family. Just remember: “Don’t let anyone call you average. That’s just mean.”