The Blog

Shozan Jack Haubner: Zen Confidential: Declassified

2013-05-18T21:59:26Z

Writing a Zen memoir is like crowd sourcing your spiritual life. You are always only a Google search away from a wide variety of opinions on your progress, or lack thereof. Early reviews for my first book, "Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk," have come back pretty positive, though one critic claimed the writing ranged from "admirably candid to downright disturbing." Another noted, "Some women readers may find it to be vaguely offensive lad lit."

This gave me pause, for I had hoped to be offensive to both genders.

I began writing the book with a single phrase in mind: "Never trust a German with a grand vision." An eight-word doorknob. I turned it, stepped through, and nine years later an intelligent stranger is likening me to a Buddhist Tucker Max. Though that's better than being implicitly compared to Adolf Hitler. My apologies to the Berliner monk who installed the epically disastrous composting toilets at our Zen monastery, which inspired the first essay in my collection.

You had a dream, my Rhinelander friend, and that dream was to turn our stool into food for the earth.

What those toilets became, for me anyway, was food for thought.

Before I moved to the monastery, my life was in the toilet. I spent four years at a conservative Catholic college in Texas studying Western philosophy. While the experience introduced me to certain key habits for critical thinking, such as chain-smoking and caffeine addiction, in the end I reached a conclusion similar to another onetime philosophy student, Steve Martin: "I learned just enough philosophy in college to fuck me up for life."

I graduated and moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter.

Failure, drugs, casual sex and more failure -- relentless, insistent, soul-fucking failure -- ate away at my 20s. I hit 30 with nothing to show for it but a rent-controlled apartment, a subtly receding hairline, and a Ford Festiva I'd named Pepe.

I awoke one morning unemployed and knocked-up with the genesis of another rotten screenplay. Stupidly, I chose not to terminate it. I lived on a chaotic street in West Hollywood. It was August, the heart of summer, and the sun burned even the smog out of the sky. I stuck my desk in a cool, quiet closet, sat down with a great many notebooks and a hash pipe, and attempted to pen the Great American Screenplay until my savings ran dry.

"Sexual Positions," if I'm remembering correctly (and unfortunately I am), was supposed to be something like the art-house classic "The Seventh Seal" meets a high-school sex romp a la "American Pie." It featured a cameo from a seven-foot-tall, walking, talking, eminently personable penis.

"Charlie" wound up being the most fully realized and human character in the entire screenplay.

"These genitals really work on the page," my best friend told me, trying to find something positive to say about the wasted months of my life he was holding in his hands.

I gave everything I had to that movie. When the negative feedback started pouring in (ironically, from people who read and reviewed scripts for a living, as I had), I realized that I didn't have much to give. Like the horny juvenile existentialists in "Sexual Positions," I'd become a pretty one-dimensional character.

Continued disgrace as a writer makes you wonder if perhaps it is your life and not your work that needs rewriting.

I had bought into the rickety truism of our age: the truth lies within. But what I discovered when I followed the thread of artistic ambition inward was that, instead of leading to a source, the quest for aesthetic understanding and expression was its own end, and coiled, like any desire, deeper and deeper into its own center of gravity, like a bloated star collapsing into black hole oblivion under the weight of its thrust for infinity.

To make a long story short, I met my Zen mentor, fell spiritually head over heels, and spent two years actively ignoring every crumb of wisdom he laid in my path. Then one day I found myself in the cluttered office of the city temple where he and a lanky, handsome monk were discussing an upcoming retreat at the secluded and legendary monastery where my mentor spent a decade.

It couldn't have been more than 10 seconds, but the shift was seismic, as though an inner earthquake had toppled all four walls of my sunny LA prison.

In that instant I knew three things: I would move to the monastery, get ordained as a monk and trust my mentor to care for the only two things that were sacred in my life: Pepe and my rent-controlled apartment.

That's exactly what happened, though he sold Pepe to a friend who wasted no time wrapping it around a telephone pole.

It was a year of training at the monastery before I would start writing again. And then I couldn't stop. I was working beneath the composting toilets, churning shit with a shovel, trying to turn it into food for the earth, when a voice rose up from the depths: I just have to tell people about this.

I finally had something to say. And I would let it rip.

The work I was doing at the monastery was an attempt to transform the crappiest parts of my life into food for living.

The whole spiritual project comes down to this: We turn suffering into love.

When I was 10, I had a beatific vision in the bathroom. My parents had rented space in an abandoned building and founded their own intensely Catholic elementary school. I was desperate to meet God.

Then I walked into the bathroom one morning and saw three globes of pure light descend through the windows over the toilet stalls.

Mr. James, a jolly old silverhair who ran his own insurance agency out of the room next to ours, walked in moments later and caught a frail, grace-blasted youth hyperventilating.

"Just breathe," he told me. "Just breathe." And he demonstrated.

For the rest of the school year I stole away from the classroom and catechism and waited for God in that bathroom. I was looking in the right place, but my eyes were fixed in the wrong direction: up. I would eventually become frustrated and turn in the opposite direction, crawling around in the sewer for the ensuing decades before moving to a mountaintop monastery, taking Mr. James' advice, and learning to level my sight at whatever was in front of me -- no matter how odious, or even gorgeous -- and just breathe.

All those places that we think are horrible are usually just unfamiliar, and it may sound blasphemous, but somehow the world wouldn't be as roundly beautiful without them. I've tried to introduce some of those places in this book, with the hope that we will look not only up, for visions of light, nor merely in, for exclusively personal truths, but also down and all around, until those downright disturbing places, inside and outside of us, start to feel like home.

Will Durst: Benghazi Smoke Screen

2013-05-18T00:10:46Z

Up until about an hour ago, most Americans thought Benghazi was the guy who palled around with John Cassavetes back in the 60s, but now it's obvious we're talking about the foreign policy arm of a multi-ramped tar pit in which the president has found himself swimming up to his armpits. Yes, friends, it's pity time at the White House.

After flogging the issue nonstop since September 11, the Fox News team's persistence finally pushed the story of the Libyan Embassy riot that resulted in the death of four Americans over the cliff into the public consciousness. Space available only because both Survivor and Duck Dynasty are on hiatus.

The hue and cry from the right is demanding many questions be answered. Was the protest planned or spontaneous? Did the group that initiated the attack have any affiliation with Arab terrorists? Who altered the talking points; the CIA or the State Department? Where were the drones? Queens? Wasps? Chigger mites? How many angels can dance on the head of a bent and broken Romney/Ryan pin? What would Cheney do?

Having taken all this in, the American people responded with what can only be characterized as even more penetrating questions such as: "Who cares? What difference does it make? Aren't we stuffed to the gills with enough partisan gobbledy goop already? Does anyone really give an albino rat's ass? Isn't there a seafood buffet around here somewhere?"

The revelations have been as startling as mint jelly on lamb. Tragic violent events occurring in the Middle East? Oh no! Not that. Perpetual infighting amongst government agencies? That couldn't happen here, could it? Republicans accusing a Democratic administration of not being patriotic enough? What are the odds?

Next you'll tell me the Justice Department investigation of the Justice Department's seizure of AP reporters' phone records will lead to the Justice Department concluding that the Justice Department did nothing wrong. The public's eyes are glazing over like a fifth grader lectured on the nutritional aspects of broccoli rabe.

Haven't we been told for the last 20, 30 years that Libya is a godless pit of iniquity and now they want us to heap truckloads of blame onto our own guys because someone got killed over there? After they themselves voted down additional money for embassy security? Another example of that whole "dynamite the front steps then complain what a pain it is to climb into the house on a rope ladder" school of logic.

But the GOP remains convinced they have the administration on the run, and is calling for all sorts of investigative committees and dedicated inquiry boards and pretty soon it will be special prosecutors and court rooms full of hopping kangaroos and then pointy sticks and barbed wire and dungeon doors with keys specifically designed to be thrown away. Just in time for the midterms.

And if everything goes according to plan, Hillary Clinton and her nascent 2016 presidential run will wither and rot behind the same Benghazi charges. But the Republicans must know how tricky this sort of maneuver can be. As with all smoke screens, you have to pay real close attention to which way the wind blows, or you could easily end up choking on the same stuff you're spreading.

Recipient of seven consecutive nominations for Stand Up of the Year, Will Durst's new one- man show "BoomerAging: From LSD to OMG" is presented every Tuesday, at the Marsh, San Francisco. Go to... themarsh.org or willdurst.com for more info.

Tracy Morgan: I Love Music

2013-05-17T23:41:25Z

Sunday night I'm going to be surrounded by all kinds of great music when I host The Billboard Music Awards starting at 8 p.m. on ABC. But the truth is that music has been around me my whole life. My father was a musician. Growing up in the hood surrounded by a lot of poverty, music was one of the only things that made poor people feel good, so music was in every room of my house.

My first musical memories are of the music my Dad made, and then the R&B that my mom played like The Jacksons, Al Green, The Temptations and even Johnny Mathis which was for my grandmother and grandfather's generation. I loved it all. The O'Jays said it best when they sang, "I LOVE MUSIC." They sang, "music soothes the savage beast," and they were right. That's why we need music and arts for our young people. We've got to put instruments in young people's hands because that's the kind of thing that really touches the soul.

I love The Billboard Music Awards because they're about all kinds of music. You get to see a little of everything. You get Bruno Mars, a rare TV appearance from Prince and Taylor Swift too. I hear Madonna's coming by. I really like that you get to see and hear other genres of music. That's a beautiful thing because people's minds and hearts are open to it. Tune in Sunday night and you might fall in love with something new. I'm the host, so I'm looking forward to seeing everybody.

I love working with Don Mischer who's very sweet for an Executive Producer and all the writers. The whole team here at Billboard is treating me very well in Las Vegas. I don't party much anymore, but I love to be here for the fun, for the atmosphere and for the music. Tune in Sunday night on ABC and you can see and hear for yourselves.

Kinne Chapin: 21st Century Philosophers: Pink

2013-05-17T22:57:33Z

Celebrities are very good at love and relationships. Everyone knows their divorce rate is much lower than that of the general population -- something about the bright lights of fame must be conducive to spending year after year with the same loved one.

That's why it's so important to listen to their advice about love. Take Pink, for example. She's been famous for a decade now... so clearly she's learned a lot about love -- and life. We should all pay attention to what she has to say and heed her advice.

"If you can think of 20 things you want in a person, make sure you have them too."

Ok, if you're ready to follow the gospel according to Pink, the first thing to do is think of 20 things you want in a person. If you can only think of things like "someone who is kind," or "a good sense of humor," you're not trying hard enough. Get specific. Specify family lineage, physical characteristics, and profession. If you get done and you're not at 20 yet, take a crack at the person's name. I'd pick something common -- like John Doe. If you pick Evelyn Rosemary Wyatt III you might be setting your bar a little too high, even by Pink's standards.

Ok, step one down. You know everything you want in a potential mate. Congratulations!

Now you just have to make sure that you possess all the qualities that you wrote down on the paper. You'll see why I suggested saving the name for a last resort. I see you eyeing your eraser, but don't cheat the Pink system. You can't go back and scratch things out now -- it's too late. Get down to the courthouse and change your name. Some day you'll be the awkward couple at a parent teacher's conference. "...You're...both named John Henry?"

I'm glad we didn't dilly dally in making this list, because it's going to take some time to acquire all of the qualities that you want in someone else.

You might have some of them already... like "hot," "kind," or "of above average intelligence." But I imagine others, like "from a foreign country," or "no kids from a previous marriage" might be harder for certain individuals to replicate.

Good luck if finding a mate with the genitalia of the opposite sex is really important to you. You've got some work to do.

Carol Hartsell: How To Write A Thank You Letter

2013-05-17T18:42:55Z

In the digital age, the "thank you letter" is a bit of a lost art. When I first started interviewing for jobs, it was the first thing you did when you got home from your interview. You wrote it, printed it on a medium-stock, watermarked paper, put it in a matching envelope, addressed, stamped and mailed it. Then you played the waiting game.

Not that long ago, I had an interview for a job I really wanted, but for which I was hopelessly out-classed. Thinking that it would be a good idea to make myself stand-out, I decided to pre-write my thank you letter so I could hand it to the gentleman who was doing the hiring right before I left his office.

I didn't get that job, but you know what, I don't regret writing this.

Dear Sir:

You hold in your hands a letter. Not an email, not a Facebook message, not a DM. An actual, physical missive. It is an epistle, of the ilk our fathers and their fathers once wrote. In short, this is a real "brick and mortar" affair you are looking at.

But this is not just any letter, no. It is a thank you* letter. You may have never received one before, but back when I first began job hunting - in between the Iraq wars as they say - writing, folding, sealing and stamping one of these beauties was a post-interview moral imperative.

While I appreciate and wholeheartedly agree with your desire to hire me on the spot, I'm pleased that you have taken my advice and opted to give yourself more time to mull it over. Hiring an employee is a unique experience that few get to enjoy. Don't rush through it. Savor it. As you fall asleep tonight, think to yourself, "I am an employer. I shall employ a fellow human being. I am a force for good." If you fully live every moment of this journey, the destination, applying your signature to that offer letter, will be so much the sweeter.

Let us not chide ourselves for perpetuating a charade, continuing about our day as if we both do not already know that our future working relationship is written in the stars. We are athletes of imagination and as such, we must remain limber and at the ready.

When we speak tomorrow to settle the formalities, we will do so knowing that "being in the moment" is just one of many arrows in our respective quivers.

Thank you for your time today, thank you for your enthusiasm, and thank you for what I know will be your steady leadership for many days after this. And if I may be so bold as to say it, you're welcome.

Sincerely,

Carol R. Hartsell

* I hesitated to use italics at first for fear they would take away from the Jeffersonian simplicity of this form of communication, but then I threw caution to the wind and said to myself, "Critical moments call for emphasis. Let's not sniff at the tools God has given us."

For more visit crespoandhartsell.tumblr.com

Grooch: CARTOON: The NHL Playoffs 2013 and "The Walking Dead"

2013-05-17T18:04:18Z

The first round of the 2013 NHL Playoffs is finished and only one of four Canadian teams remains.

The water cooler talk is all about "who will I cheer for now?"

I can feel the season slip closer and closer to its ultimate finality and feel I'm left with only one response; I say watch whatever you can whenever you can, because when it's gone we'll have an entire summer to wait before it starts all over.

Ironically I witnessed my wife lament over the same predicament with her favorite TV show: AMC's "The Walking Dead."

Each season as it draws to a close she twitches into withdrawal, panicked with the lack of replacement options. I don't hope for much sympathy from her as she watches the same happen to me - hockey teams headed to the golf course and the games become harder to find on cable... Next year I'm upgrading to the Centre Ice Package for sure!!

For more Grooch, click through the gallery below.

Emma Gray: Why Women Need To Learn How To Take A Compliment

2013-05-17T17:01:56Z

Are lots of women awful at accepting praise? That's the premise of comedian Amy Schumer's "Compliments" sketch -- and she makes a pretty valid point.

The sketch (watch below) features Amy and her female friends giving and expertly deflecting compliments. "You dyed your hair! It looks amazing!" says one of the women. "No, I tried to look like Kate Hudson and ended up looking like a golden retriever's dingleberry," Abby Elliott responds. When one of the women finally just says "thank you!" to a nice comment, all hell breaks loose.

The sketch made me laugh out loud, because, let's face it, Schumer and her lady friends are completely hilarious. But it also hit a little too close to home -- and that made me sad. I'm definitely one of those women who sucks at taking a compliment, and I know I'm far from alone. I feel physically uncomfortable when someone tells me I'm beautiful. When I receive praise for my work, I consistently say things like "I didn't think anyone read that" or "oh, but so-and-so helped me on that one." And I always feel the need to explain how inexpensive or old an item of clothing is when someone says it's pretty.

These sorts of comments reinforce a pattern of continuous lady self-loathing. When being unable to accept praise is the norm, it makes it more difficult for us to take pride in what we do or what we look like. And frankly, when I compliment a friend or acquaintance, I genuinely mean whatever I say -- I don't want her to brush it off and insult herself as a result. Instead of downplaying our accomplishments, intellect and looks, women should be celebrating those things that make us exceptional. Owning your awesomeness doesn't make you obnoxious or arrogant. It makes you confident.

For the sake of people everywhere who loathe getting into a "You're so pretty," "No, you're so pretty" conversation loop, we need to start accepting positive affirmations at face value. Next time someone tells me that he or she loves something I wrote or that my Zara dress looks bomb, I'll try to take Ms. Schumer's friend's lead and simply say, "Thank you!"

So, thanks, Amy, for giving us all an important reminder -- and making us laugh while doing it.

[H/T The Frisky]

ALSO ON HUFFPOST:

Gene Marks: The Tea Party? Here Are 13 Groups the IRS Should Be Targeting

2013-05-17T14:54:56Z

Like so many other small business owners, I am so angry!

I was reading this week how the Internal Revenue service was found to be targeting certain conservative groups. Wrong, wrong, wrong! C'mon guys, as a small business owner I know you've got some serious power at your disposal. You can make people's lives miserable just by putting them on a list. You can put entire businesses out of business with a swat of your bureaucratic hand. And you're wasting your time targeting the Tea Party? Really? Those guys don't have any real influence. Please, leave them alone. If you get rid of them who will SNL and Jon Stewart make fun of? Where else can I get a chance to admire Sarah Palin from afar?

But now that the cat's out of the bag, feel free to continue your targeting. We know you've been doing it for years now, so why hide anymore? Instead, just tell the public and the business community that what you're doing is yet another service you're providing, particularly if you concentrate on those groups that really make our lives worse. I'm an angry guy, I admit it. So, as a small business owner, please let me offer just a few suggestions. Going forward, please consider targeting:

The Phillies Starting Lineup. My hometown Phillies payroll, at $159 million is the third highest in the major leagues, behind only the Yankees and the Dodgers. And as I write this the team is 2 games under .500 and one of the top teams in lost attendance. How are these players earning so much money? How can Ryan Howard, who will earn $20 million this year, have six home runs to date, bat .250 and still refuse to tap a ball to the left side of the infield when the entire opposing team are standing to the right of second base? No one can figure this out. Maybe the IRS can. A little tax investigation might pull him back into reality. Or at least 2006.

Whole Foods Customers. There is a bonanza of tax fraud going on with these people. Why else would they willingly put up with overcrowded and cramped aisles, overpriced products, labels that require a translator to read and employees who look down their nose at you when you ask where you can find a bag of Doritos? Oh... they don't stock Doritos because it's "bad" for you (not that the cakes and cookies they sell are any better of course). I am convinced that every customer there has excessive amounts of money to throw away so that they can feel better about themselves because they shop at Whole Foods. And where did all this excessive money come from? OK IRS...get cracking.

Anne Hathaway. She's annoying and makes too much money. And meanwhile you lockup Wesley Snipes over an honest little communication mistake? C'mon... that guy was the man in Blade and awesome in Money Train. Stop targeting badass actors like him and focus more on the annoying ones like Hathaway.

Any public university president making more than $1 million per year. Have you seen this list yet? The President of Penn State made almost $3 million last year! And he's just one of many who's cashing in on the backs of small business owners who are parents (like me) struggling to send their kids to college. Hey, you want make $3 million bucks go to the private sector, or work at a private university dumb enough to pay that. But if you're working at a place that relies on taxpayer funding then there's got to be limit. So to my friends at the IRS: go to it. But don't just stop at the Presidents. Please expand your targeting to the board of trustees of these institutions who think that paying this kind if money is a good use of university funds.

Any group, business or organization with "Geek" in their name. Enough with this. I'm sick of every technical person trying to endear themselves to the public just by calling themselves "geeks." It's not cute anymore. I've been calling you for hours and all you're doing is sitting around, drinking Red Bulls and googling tech support groups. Stop calling yourselves geeks, or else the IRS will start targeting you. And maybe then you'll clean up your act, cut your hair, take a shower and fix my server issue, OK?

Wearers of Google Glass. Haven't see these yet? Oh, you will. It's a $1,500 (prototype price) pair of glasses made by you-know-who that will help people navigate their way through their day. "Google Glass, take a photo." "Google Glass, call James." "Google Glass, find sushi restaurant." This is not advancement, it's decay. And it can be stopped if the IRS makes it a point to target anyone wearing these silly devices for further investigation. I look at it as a public service: these people are ultimately going to get bullied so why not protect them before things get out of hand?

The owner of that little dress shop in my neighborhood. Also, the owner of the little antiques store on Pine Street. And the owner of that little arts and crafts store in Cherry Hill. Look, I'm all about small business and I'm a small business owner myself. But I drive by these little places all the time and I scratch my head and wonder how in the world are they making any money? How many pieces of antique junk must be sold each month to pay the rent? How many stupid dresses for an eight year old has to be ordered to cover payroll? Something's amiss. The cash has to be coming from somewhere else. It's a conspiracy. Or some type of money laundering network. And the only organization I know best to uncover this type of fraud is our trusted Internal Revenue Service.

The Manhattan Moms at Disney. What a disgrace! A bunch of NYC moms are alleged to have paid disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids could jump to the front of the "It's A Small World" line. These people need to be targeted... and hired... by the IRS. They're brilliant. This is the kind of innovative thinking our government needs. Maybe these kinds of ideas could speed up the time we wait at the IRS offices to get our tax questions answered quicker. These moms are heartless, ruthless and without morals. Sign 'em up and get them working on some real tax fraud issues.

A few others to consider. School crossing guards who hold up traffic for 10 minutes so one little precious 5th grader can cross the road (or bus drivers who stop and take 10 minutes with their red lights flashing so three teenagers can finally stop yacking and leave the bus). The people that order expensive and complicated drinks at Starbucks, while others behind them fume. The telemarketers that keep calling my home at dinner (I thought there was a law?). The two people who were too busy texting on the highway and bumped into each other, causing an hour long jam for the thousands behind them.

These are just the rantings of an angry small business owner, I know. And the IRS probably doesn't have the resources to target these groups. But, boy, wouldn't life be better (and more profitable) if someone could do something?

A version of this column originally appeared on The Philly Post.

Mindy Tucker: Stolen Moment of the Week: Alex Koll in Greenpoint

2013-05-17T14:54:40Z

Who:
Alex Koll
Where:
Brooklyn, NY
When:
May 13, 2013
What:
It's finally warm enough for outdoor portrait shoots! Here's a fun one from an afternoon hanging out with Alex Koll.

Sanjay Sanghoee: Why Ted Nugent Should Migrate to Mexico Illegally

2013-05-17T14:37:38Z

I feel sorry for Ted Nugent. All the poor man wants to do is protect your arsenal of machine guns and rocket launchers from the Communists and to make sure that all those highly desirable gardening and maid service jobs are not stolen by undocumented Mexicans sneaking over the border; and yet despite his patriotism, all we ever do is make fun of him.

Even his latest brainwave of temporarily enslaving undocumented immigrants and forcing them to build the Great Wall of America on the US-Mexico border in one year, has been met with derision by the media. I really cannot imagine why.

But precisely because of this shameful bias against a great rocker and all-American icon, I have come up with a way to help Ted get what he sorely deserves and to help our nation at the same time. After a lot of deep thought, I have come to the conclusion that he should migrate to Mexico illegally.

That will solve all his problems (and ours), in one shot.

How, you ask? That's easy. If Ted migrates to Mexico, he won't actually have to deal with Mexican scum anymore (you know, all those hard-working busboys who terrorize American diners for minimum wage every day), since according to him they are all going the other way -- towards the United States.

By migrating illegally, he is also sticking it to Mexico by giving them a taste of their own medicine. Let's see how the Mexicans like it when Ted Nugent tunnels in under the border!

Finally, in Mexico, Ted can keep all the guns he wants; in fact, I bet he will find plenty of warm camaraderie on that front from the La Familia and Los Zetas drug cartels. It's not that Mexico does not have gun control but that the violence-ravaged country has been the Wild West for a long time, and so Ted can do as he likes. My only tip for him: don't shoot the tourists.

The only question that remains is how he will make money over there. The obvious answer is his music but I don't think the Mexicans are that desperate. Of course, if he learns to sing in Spanish, he could make a living performing at birthday parties for children of drug kingpins (at least before the customary bloodbath), but I think his real success will come from using his shooting skills.

I'm referring here to the amazing feat that Ted apparently performed in killing 455 pigs from helicopters for "Bill Maher and all those other animal rights freaks out there." My idea is that he could do the same for Mexican farmers for a fee, which could be lucrative and has the dual benefit of showing the Mexicans what it feels like to have an undocumented immigrant doing their dirty work for them.

Alternatively, Ted could bring some fine American cuisine to Mexico in the form of a chain called 'Ted's Homemade Roadkill', with its signature dish of cat burger. Sarah Palin could be his spokeswoman. With this, actually, he could make an even bigger dent in illegal immigration than by shooting pigs. After all, if our neighbors could get wholesome all-American food right where they are, they may not need to cross over to the United States at all. Talk about a win-win situation!

But sadly all this will never happen, for I don't think Ted has any interest in migrating to Mexico, learning Spanish, or helping to address the reasons why people risk their lives to enter our nation. That would require empathy or at least compassion. Besides, why actually solve the problem of illegal immigration in a thoughtful, humane, manner, when you can more easily exploit the immigrants and make headlines by demonizing them instead?

SANJAY SANGHOEE is a political commentator. He has worked at leading investment banks and hedge funds, has an MBA from Columbia Business School, and is the author of a new thriller titled KILLING WALL STREET. For more information, please visit www.killingwallstreet.com

Peter McGraw and Joel Warner: A Professor Walks Into a MOOC...

2013-05-17T14:06:23Z

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are garnering lots of attention these days. Some see large-scale, web-based classes as the new frontier for colleges and universities, a great leap forward that could revolutionize higher education. Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral economics Dan Ariely and his colleagues at the Center for Advanced Hindsight, on the other hand, see MOOCs as the perfect way to test Dan's academic funny bone. Will the jokes that work in a traditional college classroom work in a class of say, several thousand online students?

We here at the Humor Code were happy to lend a hand. So as part of his recent MOOC, "A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior," Dan told a joke at the beginning of each week's online lecture video. We asked Dan to predict how funny and how offensive his students would find each of these zingers on a five-point scale, from "not at all" to "extremely." We also had him rate how funny and how offensive he found each of his own jokes using the same scale.

We threw similar questions at the thousands of students subjected to the jokes each week. Using the five-point scale, we asked them how funny and how offensive they found each of Dan's wisecracks. We also asked them to predict Dan's own ratings: how funny did their teacher consider each of his own jokes?

Now that the six-week course has wrapped up, here are the results:

Week 1: Watch the VIDEO

Funniness =3.3; Dan's prediction = 4; Dan's judgment = 5

Offensiveness = 1.3; Dan's prediction = 1; Dan's judgment = 1

Week 2: Watch the VIDEO

Funniness = 3.4; Dan's prediction = 4; Dan's judgment = 5

Offensiveness = 1.7; Dan's prediction = 2; Dan's judgment = 1

Week 3: Watch the VIDEO

Funniness = 3.4; Dan's prediction = 5; Dan's judgment = 5

Offensivenes = 1.8; Dan's prediction =3; Dan's judgment = 1

Week 4: Watch the VIDEO

Funniness = 3.5; Dan's prediction = 4; Dan's judgment = 5

Offensiveness = 1.8; Dan's prediction = 2; Dan's judgment = 1

Week 5: Watch the VIDEO

Funniness = 2.9; Dan's prediction = 4; Dan's judgment =4

Offensiveness = 1.6; Dan's prediction = 2; Dan's judgment =1

Week 6: Watch the VIDEO

Funniness = 3.7; Dan's prediction = 5; Dan's judgment = 5

Offensiveness = 1.6; Dan's prediction = 1; Dan's judgment 1

It's clear from the results that Dan's jokes were funnier than they were offensive. All things considered, that's a big accomplishment. According to the Benign Violation Theory, humor has its roots in potentially negative experiences (i.e., violations) that are made to seem okay in some way (i.e., benign). That makes joke telling risky because you can fail by being too benign or by creating too much of a violation. That risk may not be so great when you tell a few jokes to a couple dozen students in a college classroom. But when you're talking about a MOOC audience in the thousands, with huge diversity in what people find funny and offensive, that risk can increase significantly. So the fact that Dan's jokes went over well with his online students? That suggests online courses are a fine place for instructors to crack wise. Either that, or there is something about Dan that allows him to get away with pushing boundaries more than your normal professor.

Though, to be honest, Dan isn't as funny as he thinks he is. He was pretty accurate in predicting how offensive his jokes were going to be - the difference between his jokes' average offensiveness rating and his prediction was just 0.2. But he was far less precise in his funniness estimates. On average, he was nearly a full scale point (0.97) too optimistic about how well his jokes would go over.

Dan might have an inflated opinion of his own sense of humor, but he doesn't come off that way to his students. On average, they predicted Dan would rate his own jokes more than a full scale point (-1.2) below how he actually rated them. Maybe he was a bit overzealous when he gave all but one of his jokes a five on the funniness scale.

As for other conclusions from the study? The results from week five suggest professors should not make jokes about someone's parents having to move in with them. For most people, online or off, nothing about that scenario is benign.

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Professor Peter McGraw (@PeterMcGraw) and journalist Joel Warner (@JoelmWarner) have embarked on the Humor Code, an around-the-world exploration of what makes things funny. Follow the Humor Code on Facebook and Twitter. Look for the book in early 2014.

Ros Mx: Cartoon 50

2013-05-17T13:40:54Z

Paul Szep: The Daily Szep- OOPS!

2013-05-17T01:28:11Z

CJ Arabia: John Viener & Mather Zickel Lighten Up

2013-05-17T00:04:03Z

Writer-producer (and voice) on Family Guy and The Cleveland Show, John Viener, enjoys writing and directed short films in his spare time.

He and his friend Mather Zickel who is also an actor (House of Lies, NewsReaders, Reno 911 and more) and a writer, collaborated on this hilarious short called Lighten Up. The short was recently posted on the Sundance website.

Turns out the pair didn't stop there. Later they embraced First World failures, for this short film called Wall Street.

I can only hope that we will see more from these guys and these characters.

Subscribe to Viener's YouTube channel and follow him on Twitter for updates.

Howard Bragman: Gwissues: Why Gay Comedians Have S*** to Talk About (VIDEO)

2013-05-16T22:59:34Z

Does being a gay comedian carry a negative connotation in today's society? On this week's episode of Gwissues, we learn that outside major metropolitan cities, gay comics have a huge following, all yearning for a good laugh. I spend time with several of the most successful and funny gays in America, including Erin Foley, Dave Rubin and Alec Mapa.

Being gay definitely opens up a lot of comedic material nowadays, and this episode will be sure to make you laugh. Check out these favorite comics as they poke fun at several of today's most talked-about topics. And be sure to check out their next show in a city near you!

WATCH:

Gwissues, a YouTube show, airs on Gwist.tv.