The original Buridan’s Ass is a philosophical fable: An ass owned by Buridan (a 14th century philosopher whose ideas about morality were being criticized by the fable) found itself exactly equidistant between two bales of hay that were identically attractive. Finding no relevant difference between them that would justify walking to one rather than the other, the ass stayed put and perished.

I recently heard someone put forward what I will call Buridan’s Contrapositive Ass: he felt equally repelled by two alternative positions on a topic, and thus stayed undecided.

I would like to propose another variant: the Buridan’s Contrapositive Asshole who equally dislikes the Democratic and Republican candidates, and so votes Libertarian.

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I just stumbled across an open access archive of 146 issues of The Realist, Paul Krassner’s 1960s political and cultural satire magazine. Thanks, JSTOR!

I read it when I was in high school and college in the 1960s and early 1970s. It was far more savage than MAD magazine, more explicit in topics and language, and went after riskier targets. The epitome of this was his parody of William Manchester’s book about the JFK assassination, The Death of a President — a parody that ended with an act by LBJ on the plane carrying Kennedy’s body to Washington that is still so crude and shocking that I’d have to use euphemisms to describe it. Instead, here’s an article that puts it in context.

That was Krassner pulping a topic with a meat hammer, but The Realist was often more clever and addressed very real issues: craven politicians, the abuse of power, the institutionalized oppression of the vulnerable, the US as a warmonger, the heartlessness of capitalism. To be clear, the LBJ article also addressed real issues: The growing JFK hagiography, LBJ’s lust for power and crude lack of empathy, the masculine all-consuming and sexualized power dynamic, the media’s genteel cowardice, etc. It just did so atypically in the form of a short story

Krassner was one of the co-founders of the Yippies. He published The Realist until 2001. He died in 2019.

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Dear David,

On behalf of everyone at easyJet, I hope you and your loved ones are healthy and safe at this time.

I wanted to write to you to let you know what’s been happening at easyJet.

Dearest Johan,

I cannot express the relief that swept over me when I saw your message in my inbox. And how like you to worry about me and my family above all else. My dear, dear Johan.

It instantly reminded me of the time four years ago when I took my only trip on easyJet and the very kind flight attendant stood up in front of all the passengers and assured us in the very sweetest of words that everyone at easyJet cares most about our safety… and then proved it by showing us how to operate the safety belts provided to each and every one of us, for free.

I knew then that EZJet, under your stewardship, was a member of our family.

And our family is doing well, given the circumstances.

As luck would have it, the call for self-isolation came when we were visiting Jack and Lucy and their five little ones in Worchester. (Mindy, bless her heart, insists on calling it Wor-chest-er because, as she says — maybe once too often, to tell the truth — would you call someone named Chester “Er”?)

It’s great to get to spend so much time with the grandkids 24/7 and weekends don’t exist anymore. We feel like we’ve really gotten to know them, especially Lilly, the middle child. Seven can be a tough age when you’re an energetic little tyke with no real interests other than dominance, locked in a house with a mother whose patience wore thin about six hours into the whole ordeal. Not that Lucy is a bad mother. She’s wonderful a good amount of the time and Jack still seems to love her.

For the past five weeks Mindy and I have only gone out three times to bring in some items that Jack and Lucy have forgotten to pick up for us on their grocery runs. You would have laughed to see the look on the face of the clerk at the liquor store when Mindy walked in dressed for a blizzard, with a full roll of toilet paper wrapped around her face. By the time she got home with her haul — Jack won’t let us use their car because of an article he read on the Internet — she had soaked through most of the TP and it took forever to comb it out of her hair. At least she combed her hair — it took three of us — for the first time in three weeks. When one door closes, a window opens, as they say. Everything has its positive side.

Although we’re struggling to find one in the passing of Mindy’s beloved Uncle Luke from the virus. Did you know that he landed at Normandy when he was just 17? Sorry to spring this on you, but I knew you’d want to know.

We have comforted ourselves by recalling that easyJet flight. We remember the conversations we had about whether the low cost of the flight was worth the trip to an airport an hour and a half away, which meant getting up at 2AM for a 5:30AM flight. And then Mindy and I laugh remembering learning all the things the ticket price didn’t cover. Not even a choice of seats! It was a wondrous journey of discovery for which we will always be grateful, dearest Johan.

The flight itself was a once-in-al-lifetime adventure. You took us literally miles above our beautiful blue pearl, as someone on TV once said. (I think it was Kermit the Frog but Mindy says it was a human impersonating him.) Anyway, you gave us the gift of flight, Johan, and we shall treasure it forever. Compared to that, Mindy’s lost suitcase is just earth-bound baggage. Literally, actually.

But enough about us, Johan. We appreciate all of the travails you yourself are suffering and tell us about in such a strong, calm voice: the long hold times that must frustrate your phone support people terribly, the suspension of flights that keep you from soaring like the eagle that is you spirit animal. Eagles don’t give us free snacks or carry our baggage without ever dropping a piece or two!

Please give our love and best wishes to every member of the easyJet family. We don’t know how you fit them all into your flat — that’s English for “apartment” — but we are sure that spirits are high, and we hope that you managed to grab enough snacks and those little bottles of liquor to keep everyone going as long as their credit cards keep working.

God bless you, sweet Johan. We miss you!

Your passengers forever,

Hal and Mindy

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Circulating on the Internemets is some timely Passover pandemic humor. It will just be mysterious unless you’re familiar with the part of the Haggadah (the book read during the seder) that talks about the four children. (Hat tip to my sister-in-law, Maria Benet for passing it along.)

The Torah Speaks of Four Kinds of People Who Use Zoom:

• The Wise
• The Wicked
• The Simple
• The One Who Does Not Know How to “Mute”

The Wise Person says: “I’ll handle the Admin Feature Controls and Chat Rooms, and forward the Cloud Recording Transcript after the call.”

The Wicked Person says: “Since I have unlimited duration, I scheduled the meeting for six hours—as it says in the Haggadah, whoever prolongs the telling of the story, harei zeh ‘shubach, is praiseworthy.”

The Simple Person says: “Hello? Am I on? I can hear you but I can’t see you.”or: “I can see you, but I can’t hear you.”

The One Who Does Not Know How to Mute says: “How should I know where you put the keys? I’m stuck on this stupid Zoom call with these idiots.”

* * * * *

To the Wise Person you should offer all of the Zoom Pro Optional Add-On Plans.

To the Wicked Person you should say: “Had you been in charge, we would still be in Egypt.”

To the Simple Person you should say: “Try the call-in number instead.”

To the One Who Does Not Know How to Mute you should say: “Why should this night be different from all other nights?”

                                                — Rabbi Richard Hirsch, Pesach 2020

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I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts – maybe a little less than back in Normal Times when I was commuting 1.5-2.0 hours a day, but if I’m putterin’, I’m pod-listenin’.

I find it wearying to envelope myself in coronavirus or political podcasts these days. I’m not sure why. Maybe you have some ideas. In any case, I’ve been turning to comedy more and more.

Here’s a list, in alphabetical order. I am not necessarily proud of any of these.

• Alchemy This. Kevin Pollack – yes, that Kevin Pollack – has assembled a troupe of improvisers who do three scenes in each hour. At their best, they find an absurd narrative coherence that is mindblowing and reminiscent of Firesign Theatre’s scripted pieces. At their worst, I can’t make sense of the flow of the scene – too many of their voices sound the same to me – but still find the moments of it funny.
• Behind the Bastards. Each episode tells the story of some despicable person, often someone I have never heard of. It’s not flatout comedy, but the tone is comedic. Often excellent.
• The Dollop. Much like Behind the Bastards, but not focused purely on bastards. One of the two comedians who put it together reads an essay about some odd incident in history while the other reacts while hearing it for the first time. Ranges from hilarious to never quite getting up to comedic speed. And it’s entirely possible that the comic style is not exactly to your taste. It’s not exactly to mine.
• Good One. This is one of my favorites. Each episode interviews a comedian for an hour about one single joke of theirs. The interviewer is a total comedy nerd, and the interviews can be very revealing about the comic process.
• How did this get made? Usually recorded live at a theatre, three funny people riff about some terrible movie. Funny bad taste all around.
• Improv4Humans. Matt Besser’s improv troupe improvs scenes, much like Alchemy This. I personally find it less consistent, but it came be very good. For example, the archival show with Zach Woods, recently re-released, has some very funny stuff on it.
• Mike and Tom Eat Snacks. This ended a couple of years ago, but its hundred episodes of Michael Ian Black and Tom Cavanagh are still available. The two of them, unscripted, review snack foods, a timeless topic. (Spoiler: The snack reviews are just a pretense.)
• Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. As a tote-bag carrying NPR supporter (and once time serial All Things Considered commentator), this one is obvious. It’s also consistently funny.
• WTF. Marc Maron’s podcast used to focus on comedians but has expanded wildly. Which is good, because he is an excellent interviewer. The recent interview with Dan Ackroyd, for example, is great. It turns out that the real Dan Ackroyd is like a Dan Ackroyd character.

I also listen to many other podcasts that don’t talk about current events but are not comedic. Some are fantastic. But it’s comedy tonight!

What would you add to this list?

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Given this:

Do I at long last get to post this?

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Someone on Twitter asked for movie titles with one letter removed that changes the movie altogether. Fun! And I’d link to the tweet but I’ve only been on Twitter since near its beginning so of course I don’t know how to go back from liked comments to the original. (If you know who came up with this movie challenge, please put in a comment to this post. Thanks.)

Anyway, here are mine:

• Gentlemen Refer Blondes
• Oceans Elven
• Inglorious Basters
• Lose Encounters of the Third Kind
• West Side Tory
• The Ride of Frankenstein
• The Plane of the Apes
• One with the Wind
• Ear Window
• The Evil Dad. Sequel: The Walking Dad.
• And, for the age of social distancing: The Apartmen

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I did an image search on this photo to see whether it’s openly licensed. Google couldn’t find it, but here’s what it told me:

Nailed it.

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Upset that Holland has become associated with legalized drugs and sex work, the nation has decided to rebrand itself as The Netherlands.

Yet “Netherlands” has a history of bawdy associations that goes back far further than Holland’s. 

For example, in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors (Act III Scene 2), Dromio is comparing an obese woman to a globe, mapping countries to her features.

The comparison ends with:

Antipholus of Syracuse. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

Dromio of Syracuse. Oh, sir, I did not look so low.

Oooh, that naughty, naughty Bard!

On the other hand, if Holland had run an Internet contest to come up with its new name, the Olympic teams would probably now be playing for the nation known as Weedy McWeedFace.

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A geeky mailing list I’m the least geeky person on has been discussing whether https://yoursite.com is preferable to www.yoursite.com. I have no pony in this race, and am in fact against pony racing if only because it requires impossibly small jockeys, but here are my:

Top Ten Reasons to prefer www to https://

1. Easier to parse than a ragbag of ill-fitting punctuation that exists nowhere else in the language.
2. No existential Angst about whether it’s http or https.
3. No one [1] knows what “http” stands for.
4. Pleasing mountainous silhouette 
5. Cannot be confused with an Internet abbreviation for “hat tip”
6. Wouldn’t you rather locate your site in a place than a protocol?
7. Old-timey feel and the aroma of rising bread
8. Al Gore is a www sort of guy
9. Encourages the use of the charming vocal abbreviation “dub dub dub”
10. Gently reminds people that the goddamn World Wide Web still exists

[1] You’re special and do not count

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