Curtis Dahlgren
July proclaimed "Make a Liberal Laugh Someday" month!
By Curtis Dahlgren
Somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere children shout;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere hearts are light,
But there's no joy in Mudville, for the mighty Casey has struck out.
- by Ernest Thayer
"Where is the laughter that shook the rafter? Where is the rafter, by the way?" – Aldrich (1890)
Two Norwegians who hated Swedes, walking down the street, met a Swedish organ grinder with a tin-cup monkey. One of the Norsk put a quarter in the cup. The one says, "What did you do that for? You hate Swedes." And the other one says:
"Yah, but de're so cute ven de're little." – quoted by James Leary in "So Ole Says to Lena," (paraphrased)
WELL, that was my best shot. The ethnicity has been changed to protect the innocent. ME. But I can tell the joke that way because I'm mostly Swedish and was born with long arms and short legs. And who says I can't proclaim a month such-and-such month? Who made June Dairy Month LGBTQOBGYN Month anyway? As I've said in this column, "If the Lefties would lighten up a little, they'd live longer. A lot longer." But seriously, "folks," how about a few more proverbs set in order?
"Laughter unquenchable arose among the blessed gods." – Homer, Illiad (850 BC)
"God shall laugh and have them in derision." – Old Testament (300 BC?)
"He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh." – Mohammed (625 AD) [depends; it's even better if you can make God laugh (so, lots of Jews in Paradise?)]
"The [fool] is knowen by hs lauhwhing." – Minor Poems (1340)
"He laughth that wynth." – John Heywood (1546) [he didn't lisp; the language was still evolving]
"He that laffeth not at all, hath the Nature of an old Cat." – Fuller (1732)
"The most completely lost of all days is that on which one has not laughed." – Chamfort (1794)
"No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at." – Maria Edgeworth (1812)
"The laughter of man is the contentment of God." – Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare, Weiss (1876)
"He laughs best whose laugh lasts." – H.W. Thompson (1940)
"He who laughs last laughs longest." – John Lodwick (1943)
P.S. Most of these are from Stevenson's Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Familiar Phrases, 1948. One page over from the topic "Laughter" is the subject of "LAW," and the two often overlap. Mark Twain said:
"Are you going to hang him anyhow – and try him afterwards?"
Sounds like current events, doesn't it? The late night "comics" are flopping like beached whales while the President keeps tweeting the best one-liners. A quote from Richard Steele in the Guardian, 1713:
"The laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a faint constrained kind of half-truth."
The Left's "humor" fails because it doesn't even have a germ of truth to it. And the Left doesn't get Trump's because they take him literally. And when he's talking through his hat, all they can do is criticize his hat! Get it? It's a good thing "Make a Liberal Laugh" month has 31 days.
PPS: "If it turns out right, the criticism will not matter. If it turns out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right will make no difference." – Abraham Lincoln
"If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will." – Daniel Webster
RIGHT MAKES MIGHT.
© Curtis Dahlgren
July 9, 2018
Somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere children shout;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere hearts are light,
But there's no joy in Mudville, for the mighty Casey has struck out.
- by Ernest Thayer
"Where is the laughter that shook the rafter? Where is the rafter, by the way?" – Aldrich (1890)
Two Norwegians who hated Swedes, walking down the street, met a Swedish organ grinder with a tin-cup monkey. One of the Norsk put a quarter in the cup. The one says, "What did you do that for? You hate Swedes." And the other one says:
"Yah, but de're so cute ven de're little." – quoted by James Leary in "So Ole Says to Lena," (paraphrased)
WELL, that was my best shot. The ethnicity has been changed to protect the innocent. ME. But I can tell the joke that way because I'm mostly Swedish and was born with long arms and short legs. And who says I can't proclaim a month such-and-such month? Who made June Dairy Month LGBTQOBGYN Month anyway? As I've said in this column, "If the Lefties would lighten up a little, they'd live longer. A lot longer." But seriously, "folks," how about a few more proverbs set in order?
"Laughter unquenchable arose among the blessed gods." – Homer, Illiad (850 BC)
"God shall laugh and have them in derision." – Old Testament (300 BC?)
"He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh." – Mohammed (625 AD) [depends; it's even better if you can make God laugh (so, lots of Jews in Paradise?)]
"The [fool] is knowen by hs lauhwhing." – Minor Poems (1340)
"He laughth that wynth." – John Heywood (1546) [he didn't lisp; the language was still evolving]
"He that laffeth not at all, hath the Nature of an old Cat." – Fuller (1732)
"The most completely lost of all days is that on which one has not laughed." – Chamfort (1794)
"No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at." – Maria Edgeworth (1812)
"The laughter of man is the contentment of God." – Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare, Weiss (1876)
"He laughs best whose laugh lasts." – H.W. Thompson (1940)
"He who laughs last laughs longest." – John Lodwick (1943)
P.S. Most of these are from Stevenson's Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Familiar Phrases, 1948. One page over from the topic "Laughter" is the subject of "LAW," and the two often overlap. Mark Twain said:
"Are you going to hang him anyhow – and try him afterwards?"
Sounds like current events, doesn't it? The late night "comics" are flopping like beached whales while the President keeps tweeting the best one-liners. A quote from Richard Steele in the Guardian, 1713:
"The laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a faint constrained kind of half-truth."
The Left's "humor" fails because it doesn't even have a germ of truth to it. And the Left doesn't get Trump's because they take him literally. And when he's talking through his hat, all they can do is criticize his hat! Get it? It's a good thing "Make a Liberal Laugh" month has 31 days.
PPS: "If it turns out right, the criticism will not matter. If it turns out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right will make no difference." – Abraham Lincoln
"If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will." – Daniel Webster
RIGHT MAKES MIGHT.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
