Thinking is like breathing for us. We even do it when we don’t want to. Like asking each other why they are doing dumb things on TV shows when we know it just whatever the writers put there. If it makes no sense, it’s because that’s the way they wrote it. It’s like HEDley Lamarr in “Blazing Saddles.” He poses a question, then turns to camera and says “Why am I asking you?”
Thinking gets us past the daily landmines and guerrilla raids staged by Agent Orange and his minions. A personal casualty is my ability to freely enjoy the late night TV shows. They are all doing bits on the same 45 “presidential” follies of the day. We get the straight story from the top of the “Nightly News”.
Even the news pros seem to be trying not to laugh as they deliver traditional news reports. It’s as if they’re thinking “I can’t believe I’m reporting this stuff”. Marilyn and I process the news reports and exchange our opinions. We usually eat dinner as we watch the news. Sometimes I can feel my stomach moving. The food is always delicious. It must be what I’m seeing. Hearing.
Fast forward a few hours. We’ve relaxed after enjoying Brit Cop Shows or NCIS or whatever is on our viewing menu. I’m feeling fairly good.
We turn to “The Daily Show.” Trevor Noah is a funny, charming and razor-sharp humorist. He does his SCROTUS material. It’s usually funny and spot on. Then he brings on the staff comics to further smack Orange Head. It’s rant comedy and over the next few minutes, my good feeling fade.
The same is true when we turn to Stephen Colbert. Funny, sharp. Clever. Same bits on 45’s daily follies. The irony is we need these comedic observations to remind us what’s going on. They are aimed at thought and reason as well as laughter. But it hurts. Sometimes, actual pain.
Someone — I don’t remember where I saw it so I apologize to whoever I’m stealing this from — said we should only watch news on comedy shows. Part of survival, I think.
It is survival. I wish it was also funnier.
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Categories: #News, Garry Armstrong, Government, Humor, Personal, Politics
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
I’ve thought that myself, before, that I learn the most about current events from a comedy news story (based on factual news)-I mean, life can be crazy, so why not laugh at the moments that make you feel insane, so you can love the other ones more? If you want to check out my humor section on my page, feel free- have a wonderful weekend!!
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Since we don’t have tv, we get our news from the internet. For me it’s news headlines, then facebook for a bit of comedy relief. Then, very rarely, do I catch Trevor Noah or Stephen Colbert. Lynn spends hours reading and then going further. I just can’t. I remember during the Vietnam war, we would watch the news over dinner. That’s when it stopped. If I had tv service now, it would not be on till after we ate!
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We watch murder mysteries these days. Garry has conceded that news during dinner is not a good idea. Not for him, not for me. I’m good with that. Also: no grossly gory TV shows, either. I don’t need to see even FAKE bodies being sawn open during dinner. It really ruins it for me.
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Do you have Netflix? I just watched 4 episodes of a foreign series called Noble. Pretty good acting and locations and story, though I question some really glaring errors. Or maybe they’re part of the plot. Hopefully every question I have will be explained by the end of the 8th episode!
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We have Netflix, Acorn (all British, all the time), and Amazon Prime. We’ve been hanging with Acorn recently as we catch up on 20 years of old British mysteries. Sooner or later, we’ll be back on Netflix again, so I’ll put it in my watch-list and we’ll get there. We’re binge watchers anyway, so whatever it is, we watch all of it in a very big hurry 🙂
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I’m loving foreign series so much more than our own. I just started watching Foyle’s War, too.
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Foyle’s War was brilliant. I was very sorry it ended.
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Deep inside, I’m angry, sad, and I feel trapped. None of it’s funny least of all that in the face of all kinds of clear problems (conflict of interest, Russian hacking, his rat-faced children “running” his businesses ha ha) the Republicans are so happy to be in power that they do not care what is happening. Some days — like today — I would give anything to be able to emigrate, dogs and all. 😦
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You are NOT alone. It’s why I can’t think about this stuff all the time. It gets to me.
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I have bad days. Today is one. I’m trying to work on the Schneebelungenlied and that’s somewhat a good decision…
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I have a dozen partly written pieces, so I’ve been seeing what can be turned into some and what needs dumping. And pictures. Garry took a ton of pictures and I’m still fixing them. Pictures really keep my brain from too much thinking. I’m just finding this world downright depressing.
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Yep. Under everything there is the feeling that it’s all a lie. The election, the voters, this person who’s in office, all the stupid shit people say “He’s the president. Respect the office if not the man” — you know, usually I can get behind that, but now I can’t because the people he represents are antithetical to me and my values and I’m not even particularly liberal and I mistrusted HRC. I just couldn’t see voting against stuff that was working for people who needed it even if you’re a racist, anti-gay, anti-abortion, guns for everyone kinda’ person. That gets me every single day. Instead of moving forward from where we WERE, we get to go backward to undo stuff so we can move forward into what? An ugly man and his rat-faced children and their extreme wealth and lies? Today I just want to crawl into a hole… So I’m in my backroom with a manuscript about another incredibly depressing moment in American history and my sweet Mindy T. Dog and her dog poop breath. 🙂
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I don’t have answers. I get alternately angry, then I disappear into a book and don’t come out until I’ve calmed down. i can’t live life in constant fury. There’s a terrible irony in this because it took me years to get over my anger at my mentally unbalanced (and often, I merely think EVIL) father … and here we are again. Only it’s not my father. It’s That Man. I can’t go with honoring the office, not with him at the top. He is everything I have spent my life battling. Horror show.
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Yep. Same here. I read an article today about a woman in Indiana who voted for Trump but is now worried because she has numerous health problems and is poor and now thinks maybe Medicaid is going away. “I support him,” she says, “Obamacare is terrible and needs to be repealed, but that will be hard for me.” Stupid racist twat (feel free to edit…) I suspect that enough people have been unwittingly manipulated but the Trumplike entities in their lives that they actually think it’s normal and maybe even good. “Whatever you think, Daddy.”
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I turn the channel away from the news when I see Mr. Trump’s face. He says this, then that. He says he will do such and such at a specific time and then postpones. Why watch? I will always refer to him as Mr. or President Trump because of the importance of the Office. So I am not comfortable watching people making the President of the United States a laughing-stock while he sits in this highest office. I will say that I wish we could feel a sense of pride with this President like we (apparently) did back when Ike was President. I was only a child but it seemed to me to be a good thing when the skywriting planes wrote in the sky “I Like Ike”. Blue sky, white clouds, and Ike, I liked Ike too.
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I feel shamed to be an American these days. Ashamed and deeply saddened.
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Elva, I get what you’re saying. Respect the Office. I’ve always been able to do that. Harry Truman was President when I was young. There were jokes about him and his daughter, Margaret who was an aspiring pianist. Ike got a lot of jokes about being Grandpa playing too much golf. JFK was the sexy guy. LBJ was the southerner with the cowboy hat. Every President, every adminstration fielded their share of jokes. But there was always respect for the man, even if it was grudging. Nixon was a hard one to wrap your head around. But 45 is someone else. He instills disrespect in the office. Even die hard Republicans will privately admit this.
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Yea, it’s too bad.
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Maybe you shouldn’t watch the news while eating. It’s clearly not good for the digestion.
Leslie
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You are right about that, Leslie.
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I should keep that in mind too, because we usually listen to the news at dinner time.
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Just seems to work out that way. Won’t tonight. Marilyn’s son Owen is taking us out — Dinner for the birthday girl.
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Now that is really nice. Give her a big hug for me.
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I think you got the idea of only listening to the late night shows from me. It’s what I do. What’s bothering you is that they are not making jokes to make you laugh. They are just reporting the news. Which would be a lot funnier if it wasn’t so true.
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Ouch!
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You’re right, Pancho. You did get us started on “The Daily Show”. But I’ve watched late night talk/variety stuff dating back to “Hi, ho, Steverino!”. Steve Allen was a multi-faceted humorist, musician, etc. He also had a very serious side. I wonder how he would tackle 45. Shmock!!
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If I think back, I can’t remember when late night TV comics didn’t do politics. They didn’t do them with quite the sharpness they are doing them today but today is a bit different than most other days. But I think … not having been around yet, but from what I have heard … there was a lot of this on RADIO during the Big War.
Then it got all soft in the 50s, probably because of HUUAC … and in the 60s, it got up off the floor, shook itself off, and now. Here we are. Again. But worse.
I KNEW about The Daily Show because for years I was a Saturday Night Live watcher and then I watched it myself for a long time while Garry was doing overnights, so I caught all the late late stuff, but he was so involved in doing the news, he didn’t want to hear about it as humor.
Sometimes I think all those years of covering horrible stuff catches up with him. He doesn’t usually talk much about it, but there were some really BAD years in there and he still has nightmares.
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The comedy also has an important point behind it. I guess it was the same in the later Nixon years, and ultimately, not funny at all.
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You’re right, Rich. But it wasn’t the same with Nixon or Reagan. I was still working and could get jibes across in some of my stories. You could do that sort of thing back then. I did outright parodies of some local elections in my stories and people loved it. Some say it swayed their thinking.
This is unchartered territory. I don’t know if today’s reporters have the freedom to do what I and my peers did in the olden days.
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I agree with you. I have loaded up on Colbert, John Oliver, and Trevor Noah. The only means of survival right now is knowing that others see the ludicrous nature of our current situation. Then I read comments made by Trump supporter sand think, wow, we are really living alternate realities! My question is, how can we open their minds to the possibilities that the Trump admin doesn’t really have their best interests at heart. (Unless, of course, their common goal is to rid the land of all who don’t look/think like them.)
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C2, I keep saying mid term elections will be or should be our first retaliation strike against 45. But it means grunt work by people, getting out and getting involved — not just ranting.
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Here’s the thing. I think everybody is spending way too much time trying to “reach out” or “convince” or “educate” the Trump Supporter. They are a lost cause. And more importantly they are an ever diminishing MINORITY of this country. And they are a minuscule minority of the world population. 75% of America and most of the rest of the world are on to this clown. Trying to reach trumpeters is like trying to teach a pig to fly.
All you do is frustrate yourself and you annoy the pig.
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I agree with you that the crazed fringe cannot be persuaded, but my parents are among the evangelical Fox crowd. Maybe the church could do a better job of shepherding the flock than Fox does of washing the brain. And while you cannot teach a pig to fly, if that pig has a cache of weapons it is not afraid to use and is overflowing with manufactured patriotic zeal, you MUST consider the pig.
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I totally agree. Yup, uhuh.
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Well we could always resort to the suggestion by Carson.., “throw “em out a high rise window and give them the opportunity to fly.”
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Yeah. Nice thought. Pity about all those Secret Service guys. They just ruin the whole concept.
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It’s sort of like watching Gilligan’s Island as reality TV but there’s no laugh track to remind us of what should be funny (and really isn’t, when you turn the laugh track off) and Im not sure who would be playing the lead…a cross, maybe, between Gilligan and the captain. Or Ginger.
My solution is to not watch. What’s gonna happen will, whether I give myself a headache and/or cramps or not.
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Judy, I can’t eradicate my newsman DNA. Not watching isn’t an option. I usually take a mental timeout on weekends, only watching “CBS Sunday Morning” which really is a magazine show and very well done.
As our N.E. Patriots football coach famously says, “It is what it is”.
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I can’t watch, Garry – simply cannot tolerate my physical response to the man-child and the political cowards who enable him. Were I to attempt to watch while I ate, nothing much would stay down, I fear. I must read to be able to stay informed with a bit more distance – although even that ties my stomach in knots. I’ve already lost 5 pounds this year simply because I’m frequently too upset to eat.
Fortunately I still have a bit of padding – I fear I’m going to need it if we can’t somehow get rid of Orange and his henchmen.
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
“It takes a village to educate a world!”
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