There's so much insanity going on right now in this world of ours that sometimes you just have to laugh. So I thought I would bring you just a few examples of this insanity and share them with you so that you too could laugh! Laughter is the best medicine, so they say. Sometimes when you laugh, it's because of the irony of the situation. Sometimes you laugh at the hypocrisy. Sometimes when you laugh, it's because something is just so ridiculous. And sometimes when you laugh, it's to hide feelings of frustration and even anger.

Let's take irony. Most of you already know that Rush Limbaugh is in a lot of trouble. He's admitted that he's addicted to some powerful prescription pain killers like Oxycontin. Now, I've listened to Rush on occasion (when I've been stuck in the post office waiting in line usually) and I can't tell you how many times I've heard him rant and rave against the ACLU. And his faithful listeners rant and rave right along with them. The local Christian radio station here is always berating the organization as trying to destroy Christianity and morality. And yet who comes to Rush's aid with a brief in support of his claims that his rights have been violated when the authorities seized his medical records? Yes! The ACLU! But I'm not going to take bets on Rush changing his opinion of the ACLU anytime soon. What many people can't seem to grasp is that the ACLU doesn't take on clients: it takes on causes. And those causes ALWAYS are in support of those whose constitutional rights have been violated.

There's a bit of irony and hypocrisy in the story out of Texas recently (which was mostly ignored by mainstream media) in which an American citizen was pled guilty to weapons violations (having been found to be in possession of half a million rounds of ammo as well as several illegal assault weapons) and possession of a chemical weapon of mass destruction (he had all the makings of sodium cyanide bomb in his storage shed). The only way he was caught was because the false ID tags that he mailed to his accomplices in New Jersey ended up at the same address in New York. The recipients took the bag to the FBI and they opened an investigation. They were only going to charge him with possession of forged security documents until the man's connections to a white supremacist group were discovered. The irony in all this is that Bush is going after countries that he says "harbor terrorists", and yet the US has more home-grown terrorist groups than any other country in the world. Because of our freedom of religion and freedom of association, these groups can form, operate, plan their little attacks and no one can stop them until they actually break the law. The hypocrisy is that we're going after other nations that "harbor terrorists" but barely investigating those terrorists groups in our own backyard. Had it not been for a stupid mistake, this man would still be free. Of course, even Bush is not naive enough to think that he can convince the American public that he can protect them from terrorists who look just like they do.

There's more than a little hypocrisy in the actions of the religious right with respect to the revelation that Britney Spears got married and had the marriage annulled in about 52 hours. The day that Ontario announced it was legalizing gay marriages and the day that Massachusetts announced that it was unlawful to deny gays marriage licenses, those of the religious right were out in droves speaking to anyone with a microphone about how legalized gay marriage was going to ruin the sanctity of marriage. And yet here's a 21 year old straight girl who marries a guy on what amounts to a dare and then has that marriage annulled in under three days and nary a word on how she was ruining the sanctity of marriage.

How about this for ridiculous? The court of appeals in Tennessee recently ruled that a judge in a lower court had erred when he ordered a father jailed for simply telling his son that he was gay! However, they also ruled that the lower court did not err in forbidding the man to "[expose] the child to his gay lover(s) and/or his gay lifestyle." There's no mention made as to whether the mother is allowed to be as promiscuous as she wants and introduce her son to all her boyfriends. Of course, there's no reason to believe that she will be promiscuous— anymore than there's reason to believe that the child's father will be promiscuous. To assume that the child needs protection is to succumb to the age old stereotypes of gay men— which as as inaccurate in their broad generalizations as those which characterize blonds as stupid or busty women as dumb.

Most of my laughter this week is from frustration. I want to say it's at Bush for all the continuing insane things he's doing to this country and in the world at large. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it's not so much Bush as it is apathetic Americans who believe what they're told, who can't put two logical thoughts together one after the other and who seem unablet to think for themselves or to see past the slick packaging that our politicians put on their proposals. Did you ever read the "Left Behind" series? (I'm assuming the answer to that is yes with this next comment.) I feel kind of like those Christians who are fighting Carpathia do when the people of the world continue to support him despite all the death and destruction and damage that he's causing through his actions. I keep seeing all the destruction Bush is causing to the environment, to the poor, to the Iraqis, to the Afghanis, to the families of the soldiers who are still dying in Iraq, to the economy, to home security— but probably most importantly, to the US Constitution. In a little over two years, the Bush administration has done more damage to civil rights than any previous administration since the founding of this country. And yet his popularity remains high. Go figure. I wonder...maybe...nah....he couldn't be a real life Carpathia. Could he?

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