How News & P.C. Killed Humor

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Breaking: Housing Data

Low rates have set things ablaze: “Privately?owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate  of 1,461,000.  This is 5.0 percent (±1.7 percent) above the revised September rate of 1,391,000 and is 14.1 percent  (±2.1 percent) above the October 2018 rate of 1,281,000.”

T’ain’t Funny McGee

Fibber McGee & Molly aide, T’ain’t nothing funny, anymore.  Even the late-night clips I’ve been through have run out of left-wing slurs on Orange Man.  So much so, in fact, that recently Bill Maher seemed to be almost (can I write this?)  middle-of-the-road in some of his monologue.  Rational enough to drink beer with.

There is a reason, of course.  Humor has been a casualty of  both technology and political correctness.  So, as our “first thing” today, a review humor as we try to understand how it  differs from news.

To do this, we will apply the same  systematic thinking processes that I wrote up in my book  The Millennial’s Missing Manual.  The book, if you’ll recall (and -yes this is a plug- you can get it on Amazon) is about approaching all  skills and learning as nothing more or less than  recipe collecting.

Yeah…that’s it…recipe collecting.  While secret of life-long learning.  And it really works.

Take my son, for example.  Like dad, he’s a serious recipe collector.  After his “bad boy” period, he decided to learn medicine.  So he got a phlebotomist ticket.  Then an EMT ticket.  Then did a stretch as an AID/HIV researcher and got his name in some journal papers.  In about 3-weeks, he’ll complete Firefighter I and II certifications, having done all the Haz-Mat certs.  And somewhere in there, 1,800 skydives (and he’s an instructor in that, too) along with most everything FEMA offers in their CERT series.  Expert shot with pistols and long guns and he’s thinking about doing his paramedic cert here in Texas and building a micro-house down on the other end of the property.

Was that off track?  No.  I’m simply illustrating that gaining personal competencies is just the process of recipe collecting.  When you get this through your head (that, yes, you really CAN do anything) then you magically become a kind of Master of your own Universe.  (Assuming you didn’t lose the birthright lottery and gotten born in Syria, or some-such.)

So hold that in mind now, as we lay out the “recipes” of humor.  Jot these down somewhere because they will make you much more pleasant to be around.  Because “cutting up” will become second nature.  You’ll be able to be serious  as a heart attack one minute, and then roll into one-liners on a whim.  (Use with care, people don’t know what to think about too much gallows/political humor.  People with easioly overloaded brains find it threatening.)

  • Incongruity
  • Embarrassment ?
  • Surprise ?
  • Repetition ?
  • Inversion ?
  • Establishment of Superiority ?
  • Exaggeration ?
  • Slapstick
  • Violence
  • Linguistic
  • Exceptional Weirdness

I won’t bore you with useless examples.  But, an example of how incongruity works (along with being P.C.) is found in the line “A Woman Needs a Man like a Fish Needs a Bicycle...”  Got it?

Some humor actually needed to go.  Like racist jokes.  Where P.C. gets clogged up (with mind control and setting boundaries) is that when the racial lines were erased, that led to a brief uptick in national lines.  Polish jokes, the two Swedes, and so forth.

Next, having run through all of these topics, we saw a migration into  “blonde jokes” and these, in turn, evolved into gender jokes.

Example:  “What that thing at the end of a penis called?”  “A Man.”

Let’s see:  Lawyer jokes?  Not any more.  But, for a time those were abundant.  Result? Professions have become off-limits, mainly.  Except for politicians which habitually do nothing (or damn little) that’s good, and make one idiotic statement after another.  (*Repetition, repetition…House Inquisition resumes this morning…repetition…and still nothing impeachable proven…).  But they don’t know when to stop.  Timing is important to good humor.

We don’t have the time (or, at least I don’t) [see how Establishment of Superiority works?] for a full discussion of humor.  But, let’s just say there are some mighty funny things going on that if they didn’t impact life so much, would be funny in their own right.  That would require a light-hearted attitude and a heaping side-dish of irreverence.  Like we try to hold to in these partisan times.

Hong Kong

“How tired are Hong Kong protesters?”  Why, they’re just beat.  (rim-shot) As the story Police surround last holdouts at Hong Kong university is making the rounds.

There’s also a huge helping of  incongruity going around as the morning ish of  Xinhua (the Party Paper) rolls with “Chinese gov’t remains unwavering in opposing external interference in Hong Kong affairs: ambassador .”  Except….wait…who directed the arrests in Hong Kong? (rim-shot)

It occurred to me a long time ago (try 50-years back as a cop shop reporter) that the best way to steal the heart against the pain of news is by trying to turn every story into humor.  Sure, it goes to gallows humor, most of the time, but coupled with the Six Questions (which journalists don’t bother with asking these days) a reporter *(and their liver) can make it into their 70’s.  I stand before you as…

Markets Are a Joke, Too

Today’s snews  flow is a fine example of  inversion.  Here’s how it works.

Consider the set-up:  A list of “news shit” that reasonably  might be expected to impact markets.

Enough of the list to give you the “flavor” of the news flow.  So here’s the “punchline” when I looked earlier:

Inversion, right? Of course, Wall St. was even funnier earlier when the daft futures were up 118 on the Dow…but here lately, yeah. Wall St. has been telling some whoppers, lately.

Perhaps the real bull will be the Cud Low (*linguistic example) trade on issues from he  who’s been selling trade hopium as the Fed keeps the NY Fed’s Repo Depot (not to be confused with a used car lot) rolling through the trade-ins. $78-billion in one-day slosh…$24-billion in 9-day…

Dumb Headline of the Day

Here’s a dandy example of paternalistic Superiority from  CNN.  They’re telling viewers “How to watch Tuesday’s impeachment hearing.”  AYFKM?

Hand me the remote. No, we don’t need help.

But seriously?   CNN does have occasional good content.  Here, for example, is one for Catholic teachers/nuns, often stand-up comic material for their “knuckle-rapping with rulers”  to watch.  They’ve been one-upped in classroom delivered ADHD physical therapy: Counting AK47s and learning trigonometry for snipers. How children were taught math under ISIS.  See? Even education is becoming more extreme. I can hear it now:  “When I roll this grenade, put your pencils down…”

Warming? Icy Mess and More Coming From Coastal Storm.  Climate lchange…yeah, another knee slapper.

On Tap

(Hmm…Reminds me: should I put a beer machine on my Christmas list?)  Peoplenomics tomorrow will focus on Workshop, Workbench,. and Desktop Discipline.  And Saturday, we long at Long Horizon Investments.  Sunday piece here on the freebie side, some hands-on recycling….

For now, back to ruminating on the more important questions in Life.  Like “ If it takes seven trumpets, blown on the 7th day of circling the city of Jericho, and given the shofars (horns) are resonate around 376 Hz, but with a downward sweep of frequency during the Teruah staccato notes, how might we model a similar waveform either as something pitch-shifted our of Garritan World Instruments or created with the right overtones and harmonics in one of the arbitrary waveform generators in order to test the “Q of Time” theory in two weeks?”

Palpable ponderings that are no joke. At least compared to today’s House hearings.

BTW: Got a bowling ball I can borrow for the gravity part of the research?

Oops, almost forgot:  Here’s a useless Lab research note that may be right up your alley:  Cheapest new bowling ball on Amazon is $33.84 with Prime.  Cheapest on eBay?  Used for about $28 bucks with shipping.

Oh-oh… Spending time in the lab brings another humorous question to mind:  Have you  ever even heard of a person  wearing out a bowling ball???  Take away this man’s coffee!

Write when you get rich,

george@ure.net

27 thoughts on “How News & P.C. Killed Humor”

  1. I bowled my last game decades ago. It’s just not up my alley anymore. One guy in my old league claimed a properly maintained bowling ball can last for decades. A Google search just now seemed to back that up.

    I was going to offer another bowling pun . . . but I’ll spare you!

  2. Start with a 377 Hz pure sinewave at a comfortable system reference
    level. Call it 0dB.

    Now, construct a complex waveform by adding:

    188.5 Hz @ -6 dB from the 377. (50% of 377: a — sub-harmonic)

    add 1131 Hz also @ -6bD from the 377 level. (3rd harmonic of 377)

    now, add 1885 Hz @ -12dB from the 377 level.. (5th harmonic of 377)

    then, add 2639 Hz @ -12dB from the 377 level. (7th harmonic of 377)

    finally add 4524 Hz @ -12 dB from the 377 0dB ref level. (12th harmonic)

    (the 9th harmonic @ 3393 Hz seems to add nothing. Likewise, 125.6 Hz,
    The 3rd sub-harmonic also seems to add nothing. Your mileage may vary.
    The absolute levels may be adjusted to taste — they don’t seem critical.

    Phase lock might need to be held. Drifting “beats” may cause a problem.
    (Think: two-engine RPM synch.)

    My “Sound Forge” program generates them in phase lock easy enough, and
    then I find the first coherent zero-crossing, all negative-going, simultaneous
    point, and then make a loop of any length. It never occurred to me to
    allow for phase drift from tone to tone, as in any musical instrument the
    harmonics would, by nature, be phase-locked to the primary resonant
    element — be it a string or an air-column.

    The resultant timbre might sound familiar.

      • I’ll see if I can find it. It may have survived the last Major Komputator Krash. I never used it for anything after making it. Sounded cool, but it didn’t “do” anything.

        Between Winlink, Packet, ham modes, and other off-the-beaten-path, and often poorly-crafted software (badware), I have “update to -non-funct” events fairly often.

        Ah, Life on the Edge.

        Once did an ad for a sophisticated product that we said was, “clearly in the undisturbed air which precedes the shockwave ahead of the bleeding edge of the state of the art: what we do is clearly impossible.”

        Sold a lot of doo-hickies.

  3. Important idea I forgot:

    The period of “one second” has no intrinsic
    meaning in Nature. Time divisions are arbitrary,
    and purely a human construct. Math is good
    and a powerful descriptive tool, but many
    constants and standards do not present in a
    Natural system.

    Likewise all the other time periods we use
    every day — aside from sunrise and sundown,
    Lunar motion, and a few others — are also all
    arbitrary human constructs.

    May seem obvious, but it’s easy to project
    numerical thinking onto continuous random
    variables. (Non-integers.)

    • I hear ya… I didn’t change my watch either……still living in the same time frame.. just adjust the schedules..

  4. George, for three years the Democrats have im’pear’ed the President, now they want to impeach him. What fruit comes next? (Ans. a politically incorrect reference to a certain presidential candidate!) (Rim shot or not funny?)

  5. Lies, lies, and damn lies.
    NO INFLATION.
    Year 2014
    Take home pension $2,000.00
    Landlord $1,000
    Me $1,000
    Now
    Landlord $1,625
    Me $375
    Damn the torpedoes
    Full speed ahead
    Bull market forever!

  6. George:

    Remember a few years back when you first mentioned moving and I suggested to get a duplex/family compound….sounds like you are going that route finally…. However, 2Ure’s on one property may be an issue(especially for E)at a point…..hopefully she can shoot and has good aim…..

  7. “I’m simply illustrating that gaining personal competencies is just the process of recipe collecting.”

    I called it .. the work a day world.. LOL do what you gotta do.. work the full time and the part time and day labor(I personally can’t tell you all the day labor jobs I have done ).. gain the skills to survive the world as we know it..

  8. Yo G – R U going to call it or R U waiting for a conformation of some sort?

    4 the coot its a new version of that Kubrick classic – How I learned to stop worrying, and love the BOT (blow off top)

    Jerome Kerpowel needs to get with the program and help our POTUS run the US credit to the absolute maximum – negative rates till we puke..then we RESET @ ZERO in 1/1/20 – classic mob operation as portrayed in HBO classic series Sopranos.

    Sure the fallout will be truly interesting – but in the meantime color the coot – Major Kong Riding the BOMB/BOT – riding this market back up up up..

    Maher is member of the “red leather shoe club” = PEDOVORES – caution who U decide to drink a brew with pardner – judged by the company U keep..jus saying.

  9. “Except for politicians which habitually do nothing or damn little”

    unfortunately. .that is a fact.. LOL.. they are still working on issues that was around before I was old enough to vote…

    how about this one..

    “The only difference between republicans and democrats is that most republicans at least know how to read.”

    “I’m not saying this Congress is bad at its job. I’m just saying that this Congress is equivalent to a skunk with its head in a jar of Skippy peanut butter.” –Jon Stewart

    “A top geneticist at Stanford says human intelligence is declining. You know what that means? We are seeing Congress at its smartest and most effective right now.” –Jay Leno

    “Tomorrow President Obama gives his annual State of the Union address. If you’re not familiar, the State of the Union is where the president faces Congress and asks them to work together and fix America’s problems and Congress says, ‘No.'” -Jimmy Fallon

    Q: What do taxes and condoms have in common?
    A: Republicans hate them and democrats want more for schools.

    “Reportedly, President Obama’s speech will focus on jobs. Hopefully he’ll explain to us why anybody in Congress still has one.” –Jay Leno

    “Chris Christie also lashed out at Congress for doing nothing for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. But in their defense Congress says, ‘Hey, we don’t do anything for anybody.'” –Jay Leno

    “A new Gallup poll shows that only 1 in 10 Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. A 10 percent approval rating is about the same approval rating that rabies has.” –Jimmy Kimmel

    “Police in Florida have arrested a man who said he finally achieved his goal of shoplifting in all 50 states. You know what you call someone who steals from all 50 states? A congressman.” –Jay Leno

    “A new study shows current members of Congress speak at a 10th grade level. When reached for comment, Congressman Eric Cantor said, ‘Nuh-uh!'” –Conan O’Brien

    unfortunately there are way to many pun’s to print LOL… and this could be fun…. almost like playing pin the tail on the democrat

    i do like the peanut butter joke.. but then that is really bashing the peanut butter..

  10. I lightened up on some stocks today because things appear to be weakening. I am usually wrong but I need some Christmas cash. Especially ZG after the recent run-up, & today’s announcement of senior management changes. If you are looking for a trading stock, ZG fits the bill nicely. If you designate 3 stocks as trading stocks, you can make a few extra sheckels without spending a lot of time. I buy the stock & not the options because options can go to zero & have a time limit. Years ago I took $2,000 to invest in options & slowly watched it go to zero. Lesson learned.

  11. New highs
    Rich manipulators
    Stupid machines with no soul
    Private jets to Armageddon
    Let them eat cake to the poor
    Thank God
    I AM OLD AND WILL MISS THE DARK TIMES
    NO JOY FOR THE CHILDREN

    • Shit. I thought it was Comedic News Network when the Clinton News Network didn’t work out so well even with fbi perps helping wool over the fisa folks

  13. NASA tracking THREE asteroids headed this way, two spotted just 2 days ago

    https://on.rt.com/a5k8

    An impact by none of the three would constitute an ELE, although the one spotted a couple months ago could take out most of a continent. It’s interesting that it is in orbit around just the Earth and Sun, yet wasn’t spotted until this year…

    • Thank you for pointing out these near-Earth-orbit asteroid encounters. Now I see them listed in the ESA neo webpage. I wonder why the linked media story highlights the one missing Earth tomorrow by 5.9 million km rather than the one today that, so far, has missed Earth by only 85000 km?

      • Because ignorance is bliss.

        Were a planet-killer to suddenly pop out of the shadows of space, to where impact was imminent, the only warning the people would get is if we noticed Washington, London, Moscow, etc. suddenly stop in the middle of whatever they’re doing, to “go on recess…”

  14. “Some humor actually needed to go. Like racist jokes. Where P.C. gets clogged up (with mind control and setting boundaries) is that when the racial lines were erased, that led to a brief uptick in national lines. Polish jokes, the two Swedes, and so forth.”

    Not necessarily. What needed to go was barbed racial jokes — designed specifically to hurt an individual’s feelings.

    My ancestry is part Viking. I had five really close friends in high school, two of whom were Black. I was the largest fount of “dumb Swede” jokes in the school, and probably in the city. My principally Irish friend could utter dumb Irish jokes for hours. One of my Black friends was my absolute counterpart for dumb (you know what) jokes. They were funny, because they were mildly self-deprecating, but also because we didn’t presume to do what has become known today as “cultural appropriation.” We bad-mouthed the social stereotypes of our own ancestral background, not someone else’s.

    IMO we haven’t completely lost our collective sense of humor, but we’ve become so serious and so literal, that we can no longer laugh at ourselves, and “political correctness” dictates that we daren’t try…

  15. George your the best. after 30 years there is one great constant .. George ure . a genius and good bloke.. ive seen em all .. they all push their own wheelbarrows .. not George .. a true pleasure and super intelligent gentleman

  16. Humor!!!! AS i am watching the Liddle Adam schiffty Show,,,I ralize what a great chess move the maestro make with a little phone call to Ukraine!

    He gets the fake news to broadcast the show of the dumb ass demos constantly bring up the Biden corruption in front of the entire nation, by claiming that our glorious President ask for the investigation of the Biden’s crime,,,,heehee,,,”Q” “never interrupt the enemy, when they are in the process of destroying themselves”

    Cry some more you lossers,,,,We are not tired of winning,,,,IG report will cause a great increase in Depends sales,,,., heehee

    I am not a democrat or republican. I am an AMERICAN patriot

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