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This shot is from 2009 when
I was trying to get work
as a
lookalike for the late
Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Audrea Johnson Herrera
took the
shot.
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Have you noticed that there are a lot of people who are
offended these days? People get offended easily. You can hardly watch the news without
seeing a story about someone who was offended or someone who wants someone else
to shut up because they were offended. It’s a form of censorship that has
gotten so bad that it borders on having real thought and speech police.
Almost any joke has the potential to offend someone. Sometimes
the jokes that people find the most offensive are the ones that make them think
or question their own beliefs. Jesus told parables that were both educational
and entertaining. People listened because Jesus was a great storyteller. When
you think about it, he's probably the greatest storyteller there ever was.
While people listened to him, their thoughts were being provoked.
The Pharisees didn’t much care for the stories Jesus was
telling. They were smart enough to know when they were the butts of his jokes
and they really wanted to shut him up. Remember when they tried
to trick him with a question about taxes? He told them to render unto Caeser
what was Caesers’s and unto God what was God’s. They marveled at that brilliant
response. In this context, marvel equates to scratching their heads.
It wasn't the outcome they had anticipated. Trying to match wits with
Jesus was no fun. The Pharisees gave up on that and made
their exit, but it wasn’t because Jesus told them to shut up. It was
because he saw through them and engaged them in a way that only he could.
Back to jokes and politics, wouldn’t it be nice if someone
really funny was running for office? Not somebody who mocks and belittles
others, but someone who tells kinder gentler jokes. Here’s what a speech by my
dream candidate would be like.
“I envision an America with a thousand points of laughter,
all over this great land of ours. This laugh is your laugh, this laugh is my
laugh. Life, liberty, and laughter - these are the values that will bring our
country back together. Ask not what your country can do to make you laugh. Ask
what you can do to make a fellow American laugh. Give me laughter, or
give me death!”
Further reading.
Further reading.
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