Laughter as naturally best medicine

What ‘anointed one’ could pronounce a need for "more perimeter with their little quick guys?" A coach of high school basketball, of course. What philosopher could write, "Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its destiny, and comic in its existence?" George Santayana, of course. The Spanish born and Harvard educated professor famously warned that: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Unfortunately few listen to Santayana these days; instead, many hang upon every word of a sport’s coach. Also, behavior continues to be repeated that does not offer up different consequences - though such misdirection should be labeled insanity.

Clinton re-runs and sympathizers make up the Obama Cabinet. New Deal spending programs of Roosevelt repeat themselves as bailouts and loans today. With Spinoza and Muir, Santayana floated above the mortal fray supported by the thought that there is no distinction between God and nature. Our outgoing President Bush also sees that "God is good....all the time." But down here on earth, few have time for God or nature. Many down here hang around the bounce ball courts like our incoming President who wastes time where perimeter is shared with "little quick guys." Down here in 2008, nature is red in tooth and claw. Reality is messy, man-eating, greedy, shallow and unreal if seen through liberal eyes. The lyrical ideal being unreachable, the consequences of present strategies and policies being tragic in their implications, only the third component of Santayana’s statement is worth considering. You just must laugh! The platitudinous never equals the profound.