PSA: Please note, this article can be reviewed just for the writing, or for the humor, or both. You decide. If you know a good joke, leave it in the comments. I am always looking for new materials.
If careful calculation is correct, this is the third time I have written about humor, the power, the majesty, and the gut-splitting good times humor provides. Oddly enough, I am a big fan of dad jokes, but not a dad. I prefer humor that is funny for the fun, not the shocking or profane, merely a good laugh. Of the funniest songs I have ever heard, Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown take the top billing with the song, “Make ‘em Laugh.” Cole Porter also tickled my funny bone with a similar song, “Be a Clown.” However, since I detest clowns, I cannot like this song very much. Both songs are linked for your listening and watching pleasure. Do you find clowns creepy in the Stephen King kind of creepy?
One of the truths about humor is embedded in the lyrics of Make ‘em laugh:
Cosmo:
Though the world is so full of a number of things,
I know we should all be as happy as
But are we?
No, definitely no, positively no.
Decidedly no. Mm mm.
Short people have long faces and
Long people have short faces.
Big people have little humor
And little people have no humor at all!
And in the words of that immortal buddy
Samuel J. Snodgrass, as he was about to be lead
To the guillotine:
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know everyone wants to laugh?
(Ha ha!)
My dad said, “Be an actor, my son
But be a comical one
They’ll be standing in lines
For those old honky tonk monkeyshines.”
Now you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite
And you can charm the critics and have nothin’ to eat
Just slip on a banana peel
The world’s at your feet
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em…
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know everyone wants to laugh
My grandpa said go out and tell ’em a joke
But give it plenty of hoke
Make ’em roar
Make ’em scream
Take a fall
But a wall
Split a seam
You start off by pretending
You’re a dancer with grace
You wiggle ‘till they’re
Giggling all over the place
And then you get a great big custard pie in the face
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know… all the…wants..?
My dad…
They’ll be standing in lines
For those old honky tonk monkeyshines
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know everyone wants to laugh?
Ah ha ha ha ha ha há
Ah ha ha ha ha ha
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Make ’em laugh, ah ah!
Make ’em laugh, ah ah!
Make ’em laugh, ah ah!
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh!
“Don’t you know that everyone wants to laugh?” There is much truth in this line, but laughing is a choice. We choose what to laugh at, decide when to laugh, and choose, with the resulting consequences, what is found humorous. The first time I saw the movie “Singing in the Rain,” from whence the song “Make ‘em laugh” originated, I thought this song was ridiculous. Recently I saw the movie again, and this song was hilariously funny and laughed so hard I cried. What changed; certainly wasn’t the movie which was made in 1952; the acting had not changed, the actors are dead; I changed. The first time I saw this movie, I was exhausted after prepping for a holiday meal, I was strung out from too much work, and nothing was funny. This last time, I had changed mentally and physically, which made all the difference.
What is the lie in the song “Make ‘em Laugh?” Simply put, nobody can make you emote if you choose not to, a powerful lesson indeed. I grew up in a big family, and there are seven of us kids; my uncle brought his four and then had a couple more, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more if you took the Salisbury family, those still living could still essentially fill a couple of venues. My older brother was always trying to “make you laugh.” He failed for many reasons; the first was I never thought he was funny.
My older brother could take a joke I laughed at and kill the joke in the retelling. I never met another person so anxious to make people laugh and like him, who failed so completely and miserably. Take the funniest joke you know, put that joke in my older brother’s mouth, and that joke will fall flat, and you will wonder why it was funnier previously. It never ceases to amaze me how this person can kill a joke, especially when he is such a joke himself.
Long have I maintained the following formula:
[(Dark Humor + Intelligent Humor + a Warped sense of Humor) (Shaken not stirred)] = Me laughing hysterically!
I like to laugh. I need to laugh, or the depression and anxiety become too great and I am angry. This last week has been no picnic with the continuing crush from the VA-OIG, add the IRS and several state departments of revenue, and I needed to find humor. Combined with the ongoing dissertation pains and the need for a good chuckle was mandatory! Without further ado, here are things that leave me laughing in the aisles. If repeats are found from previous posts, you have my apologies!
May you choose to enjoy!
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
Long before I read Leo J. Muir’s book, “Flashes from the Eternal Semaphore,” I knew I wanted to find joy. But, I was stuck; what is joy and how do I identify joy were my first two obstacles. Yet, from many sources comes the following, in many different forms:
My granddaughter, a toddler at the time, and I took a walk. She found a wildflower in the midst of thousands of other flowers on this walk which was important to her. Upon our walk concluding, we pressed that flower into a book. The time spent with her remains a cherished memory for me, and when I see wildflowers, the memories of this walk and flower pressing come back readily. Truly, joy is found in the ordinary!
After discussing 
I have tried not to let Miss Murphy’s compassion end with me and pass along her lesson often. Compassion and praise remain instrumental tools in every leader’s toolbox. Do not fear using these tools frequently, for then you also will change a life, even if that life is only your own. I am a better person because others have provided me compassion; pass it along!
A colleague of mine mentioned something in passing that has me thinking about the contentious voices surrounding our lives. Consider with me for a moment; when the last time you heard just the news was? No commentary, no hidden bias, no reporting for emotional reaction, simply a description of the events of the day, news? I cannot remember when I last heard a news report. It seems that to get the local news, I have to question the motives on the stories, compare news broadcasts for opinions and biases, tune into three or four different radio stations and compare them to the TV, and those to the newspapers, and even then, 90% of what is reported still has to be discounted.
When emotional intelligence was first coming out, feel free to read the early papers and books on this topic if you doubt what I am reporting. Emotional intelligence was declared as the ability to read the emotions in a room and then control the people through their emotions. For which I have adamantly opposed emotional intelligence as a concept since inception. I have always felt that trying to control others through their emotions is wrong, in poor taste, and can easily backfire when those being controlled wake up and realize what has been happening to them. Yet, emotional intelligence has grown as a concept, has broadened in scope, and no one is asking why anymore. Well, I am, and so are a few others, but the media is working hard to keep us silenced and sidelined as “aluminum hat-wearing non-conformists.”
Well, I would see you escape the hook, wake up mentally, and arise as a powerful individual. Capable of independent thought and able to reason and think using your own instinct, talents, skills, and innate reasoning. I am not making a plea to your emotions, and if you ever think I am playing to your emotions, feel free to call me out! I am not here to enslave your mind, but to free your soul and empower your spirit, to support your goodness, and justify you being the free-thinking person you already are!
On this last point, consider Joe Biden and his words to different audiences on the campaign trail. To one audience, he pledged to put oil company officers in jail for unspecified environmental crimes. To another audience, he promised not to kill coal. Both declarations were later denounced as verbal gaffes, miss spoken words taken out of a larger context, and phrases that did not mean anything on the campaign trail. Yet, the words fit the emotion being witnessed, and the crowd forming the environment and peer group being addressed. All politicians do this, and it is referred to as “politicking” or “playing to the audience’s emotions.”
Those terrorists rioting over the spring and summer of 2020 were pawns and self-destructive actors to the contentious voices. We are all living in a time where social influencers play the most extensive role in the lives of people than ever before, and they can play this role because we have unbridled our emotions and refuse to believe that emotions are a choice, a judgment, and a tool for social integration. While the masses are not taught these things, those controlling the contentious voices know these truths, but they also practice hiding this information to destroy the groups they enslave. Please, free yourself from bondage, take control of your emotions, and never allow anyone to control them ever again!
Let me be clear, upfront, and personal; I am not here to tell you what to think, how to think when to think, or where to think. I will not force my opinions and ideas upon you as the global corporate media does. I will offer ideas and suggestions and how you proceed is your affair. Your choices will determine your destiny. I aim to aid you in understanding and viewing the world a little differently to improve your destination.
For example, Speaker Pelosi tore up President Trump’s State of the Union speech record on live, national TV as a knee-jerk response to the sitting US President. Of all the US President’s Speaker Pelosi has experienced, her behavior to President Trump was the most toddler-like, and people quickly excused this behavior as “Trump-Derangement Syndrome (TDS).” Thus, we can drop the “knee” in knee-jerk responses and describe the activity aptly as being a jerk. No thought, not intentional activity (even though the action has intention, the brain does not register cognitive effort), and the reaction to the stimulus is mono-synaptic.
Macro-aggression is the complete opposite and are “obvious, intentional, above-board insults, where there is no chance of a mistake on the part of the transgressor to be provoking, insulting, or otherwise discourteous.” But, again, the definition does not include the fact that the person claiming another person’s activities are macro-aggressive is a personal choice, a judgment, and a socially powered decision.
Micro- and macro-aggression are often claimed to be “triggered” by specific words, colors, foods, waters, fruits, and a host of other items. Essentially using fear and envy to demand people act differently or the consequences are toddler-like fits and fussing, picketing, rioting, looting, e.g., acting like a terrorist. Thus, micro- and macro- aggression is nothing but the toddler throwing a temper tantrum because they are not getting what they want at that moment. While claiming their aggression is on behalf of someone else, and their acts of terrorism are excusable because the aggression was triggered by someone or something else. This is like the eight-year-old older brother or sister throwing a fit that the toddler was punished and claiming they are behaving irrationally in support of the toddler’s tantrum. How many parents will buy this logic; I do not!
Love them or hate them, comedians have changed since I was a kid sneaking peaks of comic relief on cable while washing dishes late into the night. Comedians now carefully pick their materials based upon their perceptions of the audience. Thus, we have classes of comedians, including “Shock Comedians,” who try to be as offensive as possible and still get laughs. We have political comedians; some come down equally on both sides of the political aisle, others are as cemented to a political agenda as they can be and use their “comedy” as a tool to influence their audiences towards that political agenda. We have a host of comedians dedicated to helping people laugh and others who see themselves as able to influence, regardless of consequences.
Thoreau is quoted as saying, “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear!” From February 1918 through April 1920, the globe experienced an H1N1 viral infection, which came to be known as “The Spanish Flu.” Stories abound regarding the Spanish Flu, how healthy people went to bed and woke up dead. Stories abound about what governments did, how people reacted, and the science involved in this global panic. The media during this period was not yet a mouthpiece for radicals and tyrants, and elected representatives and unelected representatives of government worked to stabilize their populations, care for the sick, bury the dead, and recover the financial losses. Eventually, the world will experience the “Roaring 20s” because of the world leaders’ efforts to recover.
However, it is also clear that emotions are a choice, a cognitive, conscious, and clear-cut choice. We learn to read social situations as children, and these early experiences teach us about proper emotions in social situations. Since our emotions are a social construct and choice, the connections to society, pleasure, and pain become our reality if we allow emotions to rule our minds, which is also a choice, with social influences and a judgment for basic survival. Fear, especially as it applies to COVID-19 and other viral infections, we must understand our brains’ hard-wired coding and social aspects, plus the emotional decisions we consciously make. If we fail to understand these connections, we miss how every person was manipulated and propagandized into a method of thinking and acting during a viral infection with a 99% survival rate and why COVID reactions were one way, and every other viral outbreak elicited the exact opposite response.
Israel announced they are planning to re-enter restrictions for wearing a mask inside your home as a government mandate due to a COVID-19 mutation called “Delta.” The vaccine news continues to discuss whether or not the original vaccine developed will be effective against the new mutations of the coronavirus or if a booster vaccine will be required. We have a causal relationship between giving children and teenagers the vaccine and a rare heart disease. There are still doctors worldwide reading Dr. Fauci’s research and trying to prescribe hydroxychloroquine and being thrown in jail or facing ridicule and loss of license to practice medicine. Worse, we still have doctors who recommend doing nothing if exposed to COVID until you cannot breathe, taking the lackadaisical approach to practicing medicine.
All of these stories have a similar root cause, fear! The politicians fear losing their job, so they overreact. The media stirs up fear in a populace, for scared people are easier to keep emotionally distracted than logically thinking; hence fear sells advertising, and the media knows how to sell advertising. Fear drives irrational purchases, like packing your garage full of toilet paper and bottled water. Fear drives avoidance and acceptance of freedom stealing government mandates.
Fear drove a recent business interaction, where a person hard of hearing had removed their mask to lip-read during a conversation. The business leader demanded they both put their masks back on per “company policy.” Only later was the hearing impairment made known to the business leader. What has been the company response, investing in transparent and expensive masks. Fear driving irrational business decisions based upon fear of risks rather than proactive methods for conducting business.
Communication presentation is the careful and concise logic behind selecting words to communicate an idea—the rules of grammar and punctuation aid in communicating correctly to enhance the sense and communicate the vision. Language is a grand and glorious tool for sharing ideas, empowering motivation, and building ideas into action items. Yet, for some reason, words have become cheapened by political positions, and I would see this trend cease forthwith. Presenting the first and second principles of language and communication:
But what about those messages specifically designed to inflame, insult, denigrate, and deride? What changed? Nothing! The communication initiator desired to rile the primary audience, deny them this power over you, choose different emotions, and retain the moral high ground. The best response to a communication initiator who wants to rule your emotions is to deny them that power, and then that person goes away as irrelevant.
Like the expanded mind, choice leads to decisions, decision spurs action, and action will result in consequences. How you perceive the effects will drive the next series of choices, decisions, activities, and consequences. Liberty and freedom allow us the glory and the horror of choice and consequence. Thus, I plead with you, stop allowing your emotional decisions to be controlled by others! Cease the turmoil over language, speak simply, communicate clearly, and then rest knowing you have not intentionally caused harm. The audience is left to choose, and if they choose to be offended, those are not your consequences to suffer!
Military commanders are taught there are two great sins in planning operations; one is waiting, and predictability and the other is indifference. Today, business leaders are instructed well by academics about the problems with waiting to make a decision, failing to act, and the costs of blown opportunities from taking too long to make a decision. But few have ever considered the costs of indifference. I intend to close this gap in education, using some recent examples and some history to reflect why indifference is a corrosive acid on the souls of men.
Let’s take Robert Solomon’s position that emotions are a choice, a judgment, and a social event. Indifference is not distinguishable from other emotions and remains a choice, a judgment, or a social event. Except one is not left trying to distinguish between indifference as emotion and indifference as lacking interest or caring. More to the point, if indifference was simply an emotion to choose, then indifference is apathy, and apathy is another emotion on the path to ruination.
Solomon makes a classic point in tying indifference to defensive mechanisms used in choosing emotional interactions for social situations. Indifference can reflect envy, resentment, hate, disdain, and the “opposite” of these emotions: love and respect—indifference embodying the individual’s psyche through emotional choices. When angry, frustrated, or time-pressured, how many times has the words “I don’t care” slipped out as the position when at another time the decision would not have been indifferent? Is the defensive aspect clear?
Public examples of indifference abound; one of the most obvious was the Beer Summit. President Obama’s indifference to police officers during the Henry Louis Gates arrest debacle in July 2009 reflected poorly in a socially political aspect for all his faults and all his other decisions. Thus the “
President Trump was criticized for caring too much about war zones and problems outside the United States, while the infrastructure crumbled and the poor suffered. President Obama was criticized for his refusals to enforce “Red Lines” being crossed with impunity and where internationally illegal weapons of mass destruction were employed. Which one was a reflection of indifference? Why? I am not getting into political discussions here; the topic is indifference, and recognizing indifference and the consequence from indifferent actions remains crucial to improving decision-making. Both presidents inherited situations where American Troops were in harm’s way, and these troop conditions rightly took priority in decision-making short and long-term. Yet, which president was indifferent? Why? Does indifference change solely because of political leanings? Why?
Any time a debate about taxes arises, the terms progressive and regressive get thrown around like popcorn in a food fight. Whether or not those speaking, even know, or care about the definitions, implications, and repercussions are different topics and one I will not hazard a guess. My intent here is to help you know and better understand the terminology as we discuss the broader topic, sales taxes. Please note, since the early 1900s, the word progress has been twisted by tyrants, plasticized by the media, and manipulated into means one thing to one person and a different thing to a politician. Of all the terms plasticized for tyranny, progress is one of the most egregious examples. Just like the term “Buffalo-wings.”
The terms progressive and regressive are a perfect example of how emotions and language mix. Without knowing all the definitions of a word, people will choose to use the sound of the word to decide whether the word sounds harsh or pleasant. For example, progression sounds good, and regression sounds bad, but progress has roots in royalty taking a trip, and regression is a privilege or returning. Hence, one of the main themes in these articles has been and continues to be how to control your emotions to improve your decision-making, the need to read, the opportunity to learn and keep learning words to empower conversation and knowledge.
While the Tax Foundation does an admirable job pitching for “right-sizing” the tax base to make sales taxes more “equitable,” they miss the forest for the tree. Sales taxes are a silent killer and need to be regressed from American purchases at the earliest opportunity! 
DNC-Consulting 