Send Out the Clowns

 The flap over the now infamous Missouri State Fair rodeo clown’s spoof of President Obama is not just a simple tempest in a teapot.  It only adds to my wonderment at the nature of humor. For years, I have asked myself why some who make one quip perceived as racist have to quit their jobs, weep and gnash their teeth in eternal banishment while others get away with it, even make a way-more-than-comfortable living at it.

For decades, Don Rickles packed auditoriums in Vegas. Bill Maher would seem to be his logical successor, with shtick full of comments about blacks, Asians and others that are clearly racist -- but most of us laugh anyway. On the female side, there are Joan Rivers and perhaps her successor, Sarah Silverman, whose main goal seems to be to shock us.

Many comedians work “dirty” these days, with shtick full of f-words. Personally, I think Robin Williams is a stitch without the injection of such language, but he does it in concerts. Maybe that’s just me. When I was young I laughed very hard at Red Skelton, from whose lips a dirty word never issued on stage or screen.

In one of those famous Woody Allen movies whose titles all run together in my head, Alan Alda, playing a TV star, is seen telling a group of up-and-comers, “If it bends, it’s funny; if it breaks, it’s not funny!” Sometimes it’s about the material. The joke just doesn’t work. Or the comedian can’t make it work.

Is it about conscious – or even unconscious – intention? The Missouri rodeo clown could have been just plain mean. But were those who made fun of Bush 43, Reagan, Nixon, Clinton or Carter any less mean? Does Obama “deserve” it any less than they? I return to Bill Maher, who makes jokes about Obama’s race on practically every show.

Maybe it’s about the comedian internally laughing along with us, bringing to the surface attitudes many of feel we have to suppress or are afraid to recognize in ourselves. Prejudices, if you look at them from a distance, are actually fuuny, largely because they make no sense. But there’s a chord that has to resonate someplace in us to bring out the laugh.

As you can see, I haven’t begun to figure this out, but I’m not sure the myriad of minds out there better than my own have figured it out either. Don’t even think about applying concepts like fairness or consistency to this problem. You will fail miserably, as I have.

The Undecided Idiot

I am a big fan of Bill Maher, but I have to take issue with him on his opinion of undecided voters in this election.

Maher basically characterized the undecideds on a recent show as uninformed idiots. While I’m sure there are quite a few who fit that description, you don’t make it on NPR unless you have a brain cell or two, and I’ve heard their reporters talked to plenty of folks who are still on the fence.

Actually, it’s my belief that there is no such thing as a fence. I can’t stand fences, and I think most thinking human beings hate them. I make up my right away about most things. The only problem is, if you talk to me an hour later, I will likely have made a new decision the other way. What makes me change? Usually, it’s new information.

So here comes the first Presidential debate, which many pundits say may be the ultimate showdown between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. But what do debates accomplish? Detractors will say that they only tell us who’s the better debater. But that is no small skill, as an effective President has to be able to persuade, and persuasion is part of leadership. It’s another piece of information.

Some of us are waiting to see a train wreck: a gaffe, a stumble, an insensitive remark, or the betrayal of something the individual would prefer to hide. The fact is, both President Obama and Mitt Romney have been caught at these things already. Most recently, Romney has had to deal with the “47 percent” remark, but remember when Obama told the Russian he’d be more flexible after the election?

Information is one thing; of course, it’s all about what we do with it. Those who see virtue in having made up their minds for good will look for information in the debate that confirms their decision; otherwise, they’ll have to think of themselves as wishy-washy. Others may receive enough information to change their minds.

Yes, I’ve made up my mind about the man I think would make a better President, but I’m not ready to tell you, and I probably won’t be ready after Wednesday. There’s still time for new information – those final pieces of the puzzle -- to come along, and then I’ll do what I usually do, vote with my gut, which, all things being equal, has a pretty good track record at doing the right thing in these situations.

Oil's Three Mile Island

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may have been one of those unlikely accidents waiting to happen, but it did. I don't know about you, but I had absolutely no idea the sources of oil these rigs tap into can be a mile or more below the surface of the ocean. A mile or more. Think of the undersea pressures -- and the risk. You think something might go wrong with something like that? But in spite of all the drilling that's done in the world these accidents are pretty rare. The question of course is, are they rare enough?

Accidents happen at nuclear power plants, too, but the oil industry seems to have those beat. There just seems to be a lot more exposure for oil rigs and ocean-going tankers. Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said something interesting this week on Bill Maher's HBO show. Many more American lives are at risk protecting our oil sources in the Middle East than in the effort to exploit sources of oil here at home.

Well, that's fine. But there's something to be said for these alternate energy sources we could have been exploiting since the 1970s. Take solar power. What's the worst thing that could happen? Someone could get a really nasty sunburn. Or wind power -- a lot of toupees could get blown off. OK, you could be scalded by geothermal steam. But catastrophic damage? The potential just doesn't seem to be there.

Maybe some of these environmental wacko green ideas aren't so ridiculous after all.