What if the Republicans were a TV series?

🙂

Another day with no Internet connection at home…

… so I’m back at WSHC updating UTL and again making my apologies to regular readers and responders.

This morning on my Talk To Me program I have Ann Watson, Head Librarian of the Scarborough Library at Shepherd University and we are going to have a great discussion on Libraries, Books, and the change in reading activities given recorded books and the internet (and iPad/iPhone technologies.)

If you want to tune in, it’s 89.7 FM in the Shepherdstown area. To hear it on line go to http://www.897WSHC.org.

Related articles

• Food For Thought: Will Libraries Run Themselves? (schoollibrarybeyondsurvival.wordpress.com)
• RC schools resurrect their libraries (windsorstar.com)
• Internet Filtering | The Galecia Group (galecia.com)
• Library Podcasts you Might Find Useful (futurodelibro.wordpress.com)
• Fun and Free New Library Services (mint.com)
• Patrons rally behind resilient public libraries (csmonitor.com)
• What People Don’t Get About Working In a Library (lisnews.org)

An analysis of humor…

I just read a great article called “The Dead Chipmunk – An Interrogation Into the Mechanisms of Jokes” by Chris Bachelder in the February issue of The Believer.  It is too long to reproduce here… but you should go to THE BELIEVER and read it, especially if you are into the creation of funny stuff.

Find out why the “Twentieth Century staggers toward its close in a blizzard of one-liners,” as Donald Barthelme said.

– Bill

Related Articles

• Donald Barthelme’s Reading List (themillions.com)
• 20110214-Humor Me (thebloggingpath.com)
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• Potty humor: Google TISP service (beta) (sunbeltblog.blogspot.com)

I’m over at the Thurber Carnival Rehearsal…

We’re moving closer to opening and I still haven’t seen the whole show in sequence… therefore the light cues are not set. I’ve got all of the playing areas covered with pools of light… it’s when to switch them on and off (dimmers, of course) and how to group them that haven’t yet been decided.

I don’t think it’s going to be difficult to set up, but I really don’t like waiting until the last minute. I like to get my cues run enough in rehearsals that no mistakes are made during show times.

The cast is doing notes in the middle of rehearsal right now, so I can write this instead of watching where they are moving on the stage. I have about a page of notes so far to reposition some lights… but I understand the Director is changing her scenery concept and it will be going in soon and that will affect the position of lights.

OK… she’s starting up again… back to work

Cartoon(s) of the Week – lots of choices, hard decision

Under The LobsterScope has been showing the winning editorial cartoons for several years every weekend. I  do the selection by collecting my favorites all week long…going through fifty to a hundred samples – and some weeks it is hard to make a decision.

This week I have seventeen finalists to go through… which is what I will do before I put up the post. With luck, I’ll cut the selection down to three… this isn’t a week that will end up with one.

Here we go:

Bruce Plante in the Tulsa World:

…at least someone gets his wish out of the BP mess…

– and –

Bob Englehart in The Hartford Courant:

… looks like Pensacola will lose its tourist income this year…

– and –

Jim Morin in the Miami Herald:

… had to do at least one Cartoon on the McChrystal affair…

– and –

Just an extra for fans of the World Cup…

Tom Toles in the Washington Post:

… this could change political noise forever.

Thank you, Mock Paper Scissors…

…for presenting the Best Commercial Ever.

I couldn’t agree more… this made my morning (also appreciated MPS’s comparison to the Republicans and their current childishness in getting a shutdown of Congress every day at 2:00 PM.)

Wednesday Humor – How to Speak Republican.

This from MoveOn.com gave me a chuckle (after watching a couple hours of Senate debate on the Reconciliation bill).

Have a good time:

Quote for the Day – Bill Clinton brings it off…

“I really didn’t have anything much better to do tonight.”

= Bil Clinton at the Gridiron Dinner

Having little to do this morning, I was going over blog sites I haven’t visited in a while…

… And lo and behold I landed on Brad’s Blog and was looking at the 2 part film he did last October on the Tea Party Express. This is hysterical and shows the Tea Party Movement for what it really is.

So let’s enjoy Brad and the “hundred and hundred of Tea Baggers” that he encounters (and attempts to educate) in LA’s Griffith Park:

Tea Party Express II: Rise Of The Tea Bags (Part 1 of 2):

Tea Party Express II: Rise Of The Tea Bags (Part 2 of 2):

Enjoy.

And a last laugh for tonite…

(picked it up at All Hat, No Cattle)

A laugh from Canada which I found over at Bic’s Place:

As I did my late afternoon web browsing, I stopped at Bic’s Place and found this Rick Mercer piece:

Humor for a Snowbound Sunday… and it’s Weather related:

This compliments of The Brain Police:

The Senator’s New Clothes:

clipped from thebrainpolice.blogspot.com Back in September, godfather of global warming deniers Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) announced that he would be going to the U.N.’s climate change summit in Copenhagen this week to present “another view.” “I think somebody has to be there — a one-man truth squad,” he said. Inhofe traveled to Copenhagen however — with a single staffer and  his imaginary friends for an an “impromptu” press conference and spent a grand total of two hours in the Danish capital. But even during the press conference, few reporters showed up and the Oklahoma senator wasn’t very well received by the ones who did: A reporter asked: “If there’s a hoax, then who’s putting on this hoax, and what’s the motive?” “It started in the United Nations,” Inhofe said, “and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite.” One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: “You’re ridiculous.” The Senator then said that he was “freezing his ass off” and left in a huff..….

Inhofe certainly shows off to the rest of the world the stupidity of the American Right!

Now that you’ve had a laugh, go out and shovel the driveway.

How the Democrat Party Lost Its “ic”

I picked this up from OpEdNews:

 

By Russ Buchanan

My determination to find out why and when Republicans replaced “Democratic Party” with the stunningly childish “Democrat Party” led me to a secret strategy session held by the Republican elite shortly after their defeat at the polls.

Strangely, the minutes of the meeting were written in verse:

—

A meeting was held in the town of DC

The Party’s elite were invited

There was Palin and Cheney and Sean Hannity

Their leader Rush Limbaugh presided

—

Rush called to the crowd, “We’re in trouble, my friends

We’re shrinking with each day that passes

We need new ideas for two thousand ten

Or the Dems will again kick our asses

—

We can’t argue issues – they win at that game

And just saying ‘no’ has grown old

Drowning them out makes us look quite insane

We need something clever and bold”

—

“How ‘bout a catchy new phrase?” Palin said

“That says what we’re really about

Like, ‘If you’re not worth millions you oughta be dead!'”

“Sarah, sit down!” yelled the crowd.

—

So they thought and they thought ‘til their heads throbbed with pain

Thinking – for them – was exotic

Then a pudgy guy called out, “Karl Rove is my name

And by George the Second, I’ve got it!”

—

He ran down the aisle like a man on a mission

And snatched the mic from Limbaugh’s hand

The people fell silent – when Rove speaks, they listen

He smiled a big smile then began

—

“That name, ‘Democratic’ is simply unfair!

It gives such an edge to our rival.

As a name, sure it’s only a noun – fair and square –

But the voters think it’s adjectival

—

It makes them sound more democratic than us

A typical liberal plot

The fact that they’re commies is hidden because

Their name makes them sound like they’re not

—

Well, I’ve got a plan that will end all of that

To restore the once great GOP

We’ll change ‘Democratic’ to just ‘Democrat’

We’ll chop off their ‘ic’ at the ‘T’”

—

The crowd was ecstatic, and shouted “Hooray”

“You’ve done it again, Mr. Rove

You’ve given to us a sure-fire way

To get back the voters in droves”

—

And, that’s how the “ic” was removed from our name

And, believe it or not, you still hear it

It seems everyone to the right of McCain

Is completely insane, or darned near it

—

They’re down to just one out of five voters now

Soon it will be one of seven

And those who remain will be in Idaho

Storing food for Armageddon

—

So, when you hear “Democrat Party” these days

Please do try to restrain your laughter

It’s just a Republican’s final hooray

On the way to his party’s hereafter

—

When not playing footsie with men in next stalls

Or at presidential talks, yelling

They campaign with tea-bagging Neanderthals

Who don’t like black folk…or good spelling

—

They ran Sarah Palin, they outed Ms. Plame

They green-lighted torture to our lasting shame

Compared to all that, the mere change of our name

Is not something to go to war on

—

We’ll just put our “ic” back where it’s always been

And hope for their sake that this childishness ends

Then as a gift to our Republican friends

We’ll shorten “Moronic” to “Moron.”

 

Author’s Website: http://russellbuchanan.wordpress.com/

Author’s Bio: Russ Buchanan is a writer, voice actor / narrator and ornery creator of audio / video agitprop.

That was my morning laugh… I hope it’s yours, too.

I needed a laugh at the expense of the Right…

…and who better to turn to than Jackie and Dunlap (in reality, Travis and Jonathan) at Red State Update? If you haven’t seen them before, enjoy:

Broadway in 1977

Here’s a kick. Would you like to hear radio interviews of Broadway stars, writers and producers that were taped in 1977?

I originally went to this site because it had an interview with Meryl Streep who was starring in HAPPY END, the Brecht Weill Musical. It was one of the first dates I took my wife of 30 years on in NY (took her Mother, too). Listening now it brought back memories… and it was a great show, too.

You can hear Hermione Gingold, John Kander, Jack Gilford and more. Go to “This Is Broadway” which is adding interviews every day.

A great humor site…

I found this great humor site, Republican-Elephant.com, while cruising on All Hat, No Cattle.

Good political cartoons and lots of other stuff. A sample:

… and this:

I’m adding the site to my Blogroll.

Saturday Morning Laugh

Gay Scientists Isolate Christian Gene

There… now doesn’t the world look more logical? I found this through Left Agenda.

50 things that are being killed by the internet

Matthew Moore in the London Daily Telegraph has put together a list of the Fifty Things Being Killed By The Web. The article is HERE… the 50 things are reprinted below:

1) The art of polite disagreement
While the inane spats of YouTube commencers may not be representative, the internet has certainly sharpened the tone of debate. The most raucous sections of the blogworld seem incapable of accepting sincerely held differences of opinion; all opponents must have “agendas”.

2) Fear that you are the only person unmoved by a celebrity’s death
Twitter has become a clearing-house for jokes about dead famous people. Tasteless, but an antidote to the “fans in mourning” mawkishness that otherwise predominates.

3) Listening to an album all the way through
The single is one of the unlikely beneficiaries of the internet – a development which can be looked at in two ways. There’s no longer any need to endure eight tracks of filler for a couple of decent tunes, but will “album albums” like Radiohead’s Amnesiac get the widespread hearing they deserve?

4) Sarah Palin
Her train wreck interviews with NBC’s Katie Couric were watched and re-watched millions of times on the internet, cementing the Republican vice-presidential candidate’s reputation as a politician out of her depth. Palin’s uncomfortable relationship with the web continues; she has threatened to sue bloggers who republish rumours about the state of her marriage.

5) Punctuality
Before mobile phones, people actually had to keep their appointments and turn up to the pub on time. Texting friends to warn them of your tardiness five minutes before you are due to meet has become one of throwaway rudenesses of the connected age.

6) Ceefax/Teletext
All sports fans of a certain age can tell you their favourite Ceefax pages (p341 for Test match scores, p312 for football transfer gossip), but the service’s clunking graphics and four-paragraph articles have dated badly. ITV announced earlier this year that it was planning to pull Teletext, its version.

7) Adolescent nerves at first porn purchase
The ubiquity of free, hard-core pornography on the web has put an end to one of the most dreaded rights of passage for teenage boys – buying dirty magazines. Why tremble in the WHSmiths queue when you can download mountains of filth for free in your bedroom? The trend also threatens the future of “porn in the woods” – the grotty pages of Razzle and Penthouse that scatter the fringes of provincial towns and villages.

8 ) Telephone directories
You can find Fly Fishing by J R Hartley on Amazon.

9) The myth of cat intelligence
The proudest household pets are now the illiterate butts of caption-based jokes. Icanhasreputashunback?

10) Watches
Scrabbling around in your pocket to dig out a phone may not be as elegant as glancing at a watch, but it saves splashing out on two gadgets.

11) Music stores
In a world where people don’t want to pay anything for music, charging them £16.99 for 12 songs in a flimsy plastic case is no business model.

12) Letter writing/pen pals
Email is quicker, cheaper and more convenient; receiving a handwritten letter from a friend has become a rare, even nostalgic, pleasure. As a result, formal valedictions like “Yours faithfully” are being replaced by “Best” and “Thanks”.

13) Memory
When almost any fact, no matter how obscure, can be dug up within seconds through Google and Wikipedia, there is less value attached to the “mere” storage and retrieval of knowledge. What becomes important is how you use it – the internet age rewards creativity.

14) Dead time
When was the last time you spent an hour mulling the world out a window, or rereading a favourite book? The internet’s draw on our attention is relentless and increasingly difficult to resist.

15) Photo albums and slide shows
Facebook, Flickr and printing sites like Snapfish are how we share our photos. Earlier this year Kodak announced that it was discontinuing its Kodachrome slide film because of lack of demand.

16) Hoaxes and conspiracy theories
The internet is often dismissed as awash with cranks, but it has proved far more potent at debunking conspiracy theories than perpetuating them. The excellent Snopes.com continues to deliver the final, sober, word on urban legends.

17) Watching television together
On-demand television, from the iPlayer in Britain to Hulu in the US, allows relatives and colleagues to watch the same programmes at different times, undermining what had been one of the medium’s most attractive cultural appeals – the shared experience. Appointment-to-view television, if it exists at all, seems confined to sport and live reality shows.

18) Authoritative reference works
We still crave reliable information, but generally aren’t willing to pay for it.

19) The Innovations catalogue
Preposterous as its household gadgets may have been, the Innovations catalogue was always a diverting read. The magazine ceased printing in 2003, and its web presence is depressingly bland.

20) Order forms in the back pages of books
Amazon’s “Customers who bought this item also bought…” service seems the closest web equivalent.

21) Delayed knowledge of sporting results
When was the last time you bought a newspaper to find out who won the match, rather than for comment and analysis? There’s no need to fall silent for James Alexander Gordon on the way home from the game when everyone in the car has an iPhone.

22) Enforceable copyright
The record companies, film studios and news agencies are fighting back, but can the floodgates ever be closed?

23) Reading telegrams at weddings
Quoting from a wad of email printouts doesn’t have the same magic.

24) Dogging
Websites may have helped spread the word about dogging, but the internet offers a myriad of more convenient ways to organise no-strings sex with strangers. None of these involve spending the evening in lay-by near Aylesbury.

25) Aren’t they dead? Aren’t they gay?
Wikipedia allows us to confirm or disprove almost any celebrity rumour instantly. Only at festivals with no Wi-Fi signals can the gullible be tricked into believing that David Hasslehoff has passed away.

26) Holiday news ignorance
Glancing at the front pages after landing back at Heathrow used to be a thrilling experience – had anyone died? Was the government still standing? Now it takes a stern soul to resist the temptation to check the headlines at least once while you’re away.

27) Knowing telephone numbers off by heart
After typing the digits into your contacts book, you need never look at them again.

28) Respect for doctors and other professionals
The proliferation of health websites has undermined the status of GPs, whose diagnoses are now challenged by patients armed with printouts.

29) The mystery of foreign languages
Sites like Babelfish offer instant, good-enough translations of dozens of languages – but kill their beauty and rhythm.

30) Geographical knowledge
With GPS systems spreading from cars to smartphones, knowing the way from A to B is a less prized skill. Just ask the London taxi drivers who spent years learning The Knowledge but are now undercut by minicabs.

31) Privacy
We may attack governments for the spread of surveillance culture, but users of social media websites make more information about themselves available than Big Brother could ever hoped to obtain by covert means.

32) Chuck Norris’s reputation
The absurdly heroic boasts on Chuck Norris Facts may be affectionate, but will anyone take him seriously again?

33) Pencil cricket
An old-fashioned schoolboy diversion swept away by the Stick Cricket behemoth

34) Mainstream media
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Rocky Mountain News in the US have already folded, and the UK’s Observer may follow. Free news and the migration of advertising to the web threaten the basic business models of almost all media organisations.

35) Concentration
What with tabbing between Gmail, Twitter, Facebook and Google News, it’s a wonder anyone gets their work done. A disturbing trend captured by the wonderful XKCD webcomic.

36) Mr Alifi’s dignity
Twenty years ago, if you were a Sudanese man who was forced to marry a goat after having sex with it, you’d take solace that news of your shame would be unlikely to spread beyond the neighbouring villages. Unfortunately for Mr Alifi, his indiscretion came in the digital age – and became one of the first viral news stories.

37) Personal reinvention
How can you forge a new identity at university when your Facebook is plastered with photos of the “old” you?

38) Viktor Yanukovych
The Orange Revolution in Ukraine was organised by a cabal of students and young activists who exploited the power of the web to mobilise resistance against the old regime, and sweep Viktor Yushchenko to power.

39) The insurance ring-round
Their adverts may grate, but insurance comparison websites have killed one of the most tedious annual chores

40) Undiscovered artists
Posting paintings to deviantART and Flickr – or poems to writebuzz – could not be easier. So now the garret-dwellers have no excuses.

41) The usefulness of reference pages at the front of diaries
If anyone still digs out their diaries to check what time zone Lisbon is in, or how many litres there are to a gallon, we don’t know them.

42) The nervous thrill of the reunion
You’ve spent the past five years tracking their weight-gain on Facebook, so meeting up with your first love doesn’t pack the emotional punch it once did.

43) Solitaire
The original computer timewaster has been superseded by the more alluring temptations of the web. Ditto Minesweeper.

44) Trust in Nigerian businessmen and princes
Some gift horses should have their mouths very closely inspected.

45) Prostitute calling cards/ kerb crawling
Sex can be marketed more cheaply, safely and efficiently on the web than the street corner.

46) Staggered product/film releases
Companies are becoming increasingly draconian in their anti-piracy measure, but are finally beginning to appreciate that forcing British consumers to wait six months to hand over their money is not a smart business plan.

47) Footnotes
Made superfluous by the link, although Wikipedia is fighting a brave rearguard action.

48) Grand National trips to the bookmaker
Having a little flutter is much more fun when you don’t have to wade though a shop of drunks and ne’er-do-wells

49) Fanzines
Blogs and fansites offer greater freedom and community interaction than paper fanzines, and can be read by many more people.

50) Your lunchbreak
Did you leave your desk today? Or snaffle a sandwich while sending a few personal emails and checking the price of a week in Istanbul?

Wasn’t that fun?

Old Guy Humor

Cecil Thompson made my morning with this:

Drafting Guys over 60

—-this is funny & obviously written by a Former Soldier—-

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I’m too old to track down terrorists. You can’t be older than 42 to join the military. They’ve got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn’t be able to join a military unit until you’re at least 35.

For starters:
Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to conc entrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven’t lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. ‘My back hurts! I can’t sleep, I’m tired and hungry’ We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.

An 18-year-old doesn’t even like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell. Besides, like I said, ‘I’m tired and can’t sleep and since I’m already up, I may as well be up killing som e fanatical s-of-a-b…. ‘

If captured, we couldn’t spill the beans because we’d forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We’re used to getting screamed and yelled at and we’re used to soft food. We’ve also developed an appreciation for guns. We’ve been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I’ve been in combat and didn’t see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I’ve never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He’s still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn’t figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off in to harm’s way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.

How about recruiting Women over 50 !!!
You think Men have attitudes !!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my Gosh!!!

Share this with your senior friends. It’s purposely in big type so they can read it.

Cartoon(s) of the Week

OK… this was one of those weeks when I couldn’t come to a one cartoon decision. Out of twenty or so I gathered this week, there are three I’m left with. Here they are:

Daryl Cagle at MSNBC.COM:

= and =

Pat Oliphant, Universal Press Syndicate:

= and =

Bob Englehardt in the Hartford Courant:

And that’s the way it is…