Comedy

Maybe it is just me, but I do not find cinematic or television comedy very comedic. The only reason, I think, that motion picture romantic comedies and other comedic endeavors is due to age; my age.

Watching comedies and this goes for cartoons also is not the fun I remember. The current list of comedic performers lack skill. They depend too much on toilet humor and vulgarity. Let me be clear, I am not prudish. Occasionally I like off-color jokes as much as anyone; however a steady stream of such humor finally fails to be funny.

Another form of current humor I do not find funny is that which belittles people. The intelligent are made to look foolish, older people are out of touch, and families are the disdained and made to look pointless. Of course, while growing up I often thought of my family as funny, but I never belittled any of my family. As my children grew up I am certain they too found humor in family life, but I did not feel belittled.

While teaching a college course on human cultures I often used an Abbott and Costello film called "Buck Privates" as an example of the American culture of the late 1930s and early 1940s. To my astonishment the young college students in my classes would laugh out loud at the antics of the bungling Abbot and Costello. Further, even in the slap stick comedy of the film a message could be clearly understood. Further, the film provided a good medium for discussing current social issues. In "Buck Privates" you were truly entertained. You got to see the Andrews Sisters perform the "Bugle Boy from Company B," an unresolved triangular love dilemma providing the plot line, and the absurdity of Army life. The most important message of the film is that with dedicated effort and commitment success can be achieved. In other words, the story had in it a sense of redemption and purpose. Army life and street life provided the sources of humor but no one or anything was the target of scorn.

Again, age may color my observations. If I were in my twenties or thirties in 2011, maybe I could find the humor in the unpleasant and thoughtless comedy of this era.

When Did Soda Pop Become Food?



A good bottle of wine,
which this is, qualifies as food and
may even a health benefit.



After the election of 2010 my hope that we would not hear any more outrageous political nonsense. Now it is the soda pop people complaining about a potential tax on their products. Most of what they manufacture and sell is harmful in one way or another and it does not seem too outrageous to me to have these items taxed.

That soda pop is harmful is not something I learned just the other day. No, a study just published showing that diet soda can lead to heart attacks and stroke did not open my eyes to the ill effect of carbonated drinks. When a boy in junior high school my dentist told me to stay away from soft drinks. He told me they could rot away my teeth. While my teeth did not rot out of my head, having them drilled and filled by the dentist seemed to have a correlation.

My question, after watching television ads with a woman in grocery store whining about the threat to the cost of groceries and her right to purchase anything she wanted without having to pay a tax of some sort, is, "When did soda pop become food?" I know you can buy that stuff at a grocery store, but it can also be purchased from machines, a gas stations, bar, and who knows where else. Beer and wine are taxed. They qualify more as food than soda pops. In fact, there is some health benefit in consuming, in moderation of course, these products. Beer and wine and other alcoholic products are taxed to discourage their purchase; in fact, these "food stuffs" are highly regulated. Further, in the television commercial the woman is also lumping in "fruit" drinks. I do not think this includes bone fide orange juice but something the so called "punch" drinks that are mostly water and corn syrup with maybe a fruit flavor added.

A tax on soda pops or sodies, as a person I once knew called them, could be used to help pay dental bills, hospital bills for stroke and heart attack victims, or pay for the funerals of the obese. Maybe a tax on these sodies could be used to help unemployed find work picking up the plastic bottles and cans littered about the highways and streets.

Whether carbonated drinks, so called "fruit" drinks, and bottled water with dubious fruit flavors are taxed or not is not the problem. The problem is thinking of them as food.

Words of Love

Here are some verses from the Bible that make good Valentine's Day thoughts.

“Arise, my love, my fair one,

          and come away;

for now the winter is past,

          the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

          the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

          is heard in our land.

The fig tree puts forth its figs,

          and the vines are in blossom;

          they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

          and come away.

O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,

          in the covert of the cliff,

let me see your face,

          let me hear your voice;

for your voice is sweet,

          and your face is lovely.

Song of Songs 2:10b-14

BELOVED, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another

First Letter of John  4:7-11

A Need for a Warner Climate

Panama is my birth place. Although I have not been there since 1936, only 18 months old at the time, there stirs in me a wish to be warm. Of course, everyone wishes to be warm, even Eskimos. But I want more than the warmth of a fire or a seal skin parka, I want to be in warm air under swaying palm trees in a southern sun. I do not mean a southern sun like Alabama or some such place, I mean the tropics.

Back during the years of the war in Viet Nam I was assigned there for two one year tours. Compared to the military deployments of the current situation, two years seems hardly long enough, but back then it was. My recollections of being in Viet Nam are that I liked the climate, most of the time. There were times when it was too wet and some times too hot and dry, but most of the time I like it. Often I have thought about going back there to see if I still would like being in that tropical climate. One time I went to Singapore and got drenching wet. That was not too bad until I got into an air conditioned bus and nearly turned into an icicle. Another time, in Bangkok, Thailand, this time I stepped out the hotel into a blazing heat and found a cab with air conditioning; that was good.

Looking our of my window right now there is something like a foot of snow or more, with drifts probably two feet or higher. As I look out the window and feel the cold air around my feet I am reminded of living in Alaska, pre Sarah Palin, for three years. Living in Alaska was a fun experience, and I spent many days out in the deep snow and sub zero temperatures, but I cannot say I truly enjoyed it. However, I did all that, but I was in my late twenties and early thirties. Roughing it in the wilds of the north country was an adventure. These days an adventure is living on the French Riviera watching the bathers on the beaches where wearing complete bathing outfits are optional.

Snow scenes can be beautiful. The white of the snow, in certain lights, can have a cold blue hue to it. The sweep of the drifts against trees sleeping for the winter adds to the composition, but they are pictures. Those pictures may give you a chill but they are pictures one can view in the comfort of a centrally heated home.

Right now the need to relocate to a warmer climate. Often the notion has hit me that I could live in New Zealand when it is winter in the northern hemisphere and back in the U.S. when it is summer here. That arrangement, however, requires money. The only way to finance such an arrangement is to solicit donations. I am a worthy charity, but the donor cannot take it as a deduction, but still. Would you consider helping me find a way of avoiding the cold and snow?