a few random notes: recognizing and acting on the necessity to send in the clowns of one variety or another isn't always  diagnostic of  lack of patience, as Al points out.  there's a personal and collective mental health day implicitly and greatly needed that is sometimes best addressed through some well-placed satire or facetiousness or even sarcasm.  Shakespeare was not the first in the history of theater to throw in a bit of foolery, often with the high and mighty inverting into the fool, when the drama got too heavy. and the nature of really reporting the news is to deal with the almost unbearably heavy.

  Jill Nelson was just on Pacifica Radio yesterday, talking about turning to writing fiction as an antidote for the way that being a journalist and studying and exposing some really nasty stuff pisses her off as an unavoidable side effect. (her latest novel is about a fictitious bordello-for-female-clients in Reno, and it sounds like fun; take that any way you may choose.)

the truth is not always entertaining; it can be totally disgusting in fact, as anyone who follows the news can tell you. and the act of using humor, including barbed humor, to invert the more hirrifying aspects of the truth is an ancient social ritual that serves a vastly important function.

some of my old friends have heard me quote the original PL Traver creation, Mary Poppins ( a far more complex and bitchy and ultimately wise character than any Disney movie could ever protray) as telling the Banks children, "Patience?  I have the patience of a Boa Constrictor.  I merely Speak my Mind."  (capitalization quite important to the message here, IMO.)

could a person get a bit psychoanalytical and say that in having a chuckle at the expense of the straight-line lady here, I'm allowing Al to express some of my own impatience or hostility or aggression by letting him do the twitting of Mrs. Tisdale?  sure, if you want. it can also be argued that perhaps enjoying  this relatively harmless diversion makes it easier to endure for the long haul, which is where patience comes in handiest and/or most important.

I repeat, you laugh, or you die. it's not really a patience issue for me in the last analysis, though I do understand what you're saying.

as far as making fun of people who eat in fast food restaurants is concerned, Bill Clinton was by far the funniest of all Mac-aholic types from my perspective, mostly because he could damned well afford a more genteel, if you will, food addiction. it's not just about prepacked fast food.  remember the fun at least some of the public had with Richard Nixon's dietary habits (catsup on cottage cheeese.)how the powerful feed themselves can be howlingly funny.

and on that note, I break for lunch. I'm a rather patient soul despite the amusement I take in Al's ways of speaking quite bluntly to his straight-line folk, but not so much when I'm hungry. and could (and do)people make fun of MY hippie-food lunches! let 'em, but I gotta eat.

 hasta la victoria siempre, no mayo, no pickle,

Judith