Just rolling those dollars out! Image courtesy of The BS Report

From MSNBC this morning:

Democrats make pre-election pitch to help seniors
Democrats are making a pre-election pitch to give Social Security recipients a one-time payment of $250, part of an effort to lure senior voters.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39736338/from/toolbar

Things just keep getting wackier. They used to put people in jail for this.

This could be your heart! Image via Wikipedia

An Associated Press story this week reported:

Hundreds of auto dealers in the New York area have withdrawn from the government’s Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government…”

(Here’s the link from the Dallas Morning News.)

This certainly appeared to be a simple program to set-up and administer. If you have the right old car, you could receive up to $4500 back on the right new car. There were basically only two standards to meet, and yet the program ran out of money almost immediately and now it’s taking so long to pay that dealers are dropping out.

This is the same government that wants to reform our health care by getting more involved in the process.

God help us all.

Image via Wikipedia

Several years ago the Plano Star Courier reported that more students had passed a particular test than the year before. While the Dallas Morning News reported that the passing rate for this test was ten per cent lower as compared to the previous year.

Both stories are true.

The facts were that more students had taken the test, so more had passed, but since more students took the test, the percentage of students passing was lower. As an example, if 500 took the test the first year and 400 passed, the percentage passing is 80%. If 1000 take the test the second year and 700 pass, more have passed but the percentage passing is lower. So not only are both stories true, but both are absolutely accurate as well.

Welcome to spin.

Spin is selective application of the truth, phrased in a way to make a preferred point, or in our case, to point out absurdity or inconsistency for the humor.

Spin has been around since man started to talk, and many of us became masters of it at a very young age.

Most humor needs a point of view, or spin. In my last post How Congress Makes Decisions, my spin was that Congress was a bunch of spineless sycophants whose only concern was getting re-elected… No wait, that’s too close to reality. My spin was that Congress was a group of money grubbing losers for sale to the highest bidder… No wait, that sounds real too. My spin was …

You get the idea (and I can’t stop)

• You know how to tell if a Congress member is lying? Their lips are moving.
• The only difference between Bernie Madoff and a Congress member is that Madoff admitted he was a crook who scammed people out of their savings…
• The Devil appeared in a Congress member’s office and said, “I can make you President of the United States, rich and powerful beyond your wildest dreams… all I ask in return is your soul, your children’s souls, and the souls of their children.” The Congress member nodded in agreement for a moment and then said “Hey! Whats the catch?!”

Damn! Stop me before I spin again!

Point-of-View gives you an outline and spin fills in the colors.

Just as liberal Democrats spin everything Republican as the work of the Devil incarnate. Conservative Republicans spin the Democrats as naive and inexperienced with no real-world business sense. Republicans think government is bad and business is good, Democrats believe business is bad and government is good.

No doubt every Congress person elected believes they will be different, but the system makes it hard to achieve real change without selling out to some extent. A vote on a less than admirable bill here, in order to pass another less than admirable bill of their own later.

There are saints and sinners in Congress just as there are in any occupation, but in most other businesses failure can’t be spun into success. Congress seems less concerned with real success than symbolic victories, in which it appears everyone wins, but in reality no one does. Because, in politics, while it is important to do good, it is even more important to appear to do good, while actually doing as little as possible.

Damn! This is supposed to be a humor blog.

Spin makes use of the cliches and stereotypes that surround us, the shorthand of popular knowledge (right or wrong,) and the simple up/down/sideways arrows of Conventional Wisdom … would that life were so simple.

Humor benefits from some distance and getting too close to a subject can blind you.  I may have gotten too wrapped up in this Congress thing, and may be guilty of Becoming Audience. Humor needs spin to work, but humor also helps us by making it easier to recognize spin when it is used.

So try this: This is an article from the March 30th issue of Newsweek, TARP Funds Get Recycled as Political Contributions spin it for the humor as a Republican might, and then as a Democrat.

Be sure comment below, subscribe abpve, and order your “It’s the Congress, Stupid!” bumper stickers and other cool stuff from the sidebar.

Continuing our discussion started in Cognomen Label Sobriquet.

Stimulus Slush Fund for Housing Entitlement Thugs… From GOPUSA

Parroting GOP, Dittohead Limbaugh dutifully launches false ACORN attack……From Media Matters.

Gotta go. It’s my day to work the cafeteria at school. Submit your favorite “labeled” headlines in comments.

"We have to leave, Robin. The Dallasites are coming with torches and pitchforks."

This past Sunday I was attending Sunday School and the teacher was discussing ethics and the issues we face today. He had filled a whiteboard with words and phrases like: reproduction, abortion, education, creation, animal rights, the environment, marriage, crime, punishment, immigration, the economy.

He asked if there was anything else to add to the list … and I called from the back of the room “I think that’s all we have time to solve today.”

The line got a laugh, because obviously we weren’t going to solve anything that morning.

If you want to use observational humor then you have to stay a step removed from what is going on around you, otherwise you run the risk of losing your perspective.

You have to ask yourself over and over again; “What’s wrong with this picture?” (Although you are free to think of a new less worn-out phrase.)

We can’t stay a step-removed if we “become audience.”

This is a phrase used in improvisation. It means getting so wrapped up in a scene that you cease to play and begin to watch. It can happen to anyone. A performer comes up with a line that is so brilliant, so funny and so right, that you stop to admire it, rather than advancing the scene. Or sometimes, so incredibly stupid you check to see if his brains have fallen to the floor.

But I bring this up to point out that you have to keep your eyes and ears open for inconsistencies, inaccuracies and incongruities.

When the city council meeting gets heated, you can either get mad along with everyone else, or reflect on how absolutely silly it is that the city council of Dallas, Texas is concerning itself with the placement of bathouses (like birdhouse, only for bats) for a Boy Scout Eagle project.

When nearly all the media is fawning over a new president, and even the late night hosts are relying on old material about the outgoing president – You can, if a liberal, enjoy their deference and respect for the new leader. Or, if a conservative, rail against the hidebound nincompoops who don’t appreciate the sacrifices of the outgoing commander-in-chief.

Or you can stay a step back from the hoopla, and observe.

Observe that if forced to fight, and I had to choose, I think I would choose Barack rather than Michelle, she looks like one tough mother.

You can wonder if he would have been elected if he had gone by his college nickname, Barry. Try saying it like you’re teasing the class nerd “Oh Barrreeeeee!” Barack has that hard K sound that just cuts off all teasing.

You can wonder if the Obama-maniacs appreciate the fact they now live in an Obama-nation?

You can get wrapped up in the fact that FeedBurner has somehow lost your feed stats, or think about how we all sound like some sort of information vampires – “Must read feeds!” “Must have my feeds!” “Feed me!”

You can spit, snarl and fume about being caught in school zone traffic, or notice that the little-bitty three-wheeled scooter the parking enforcement officer drives is called “The Interceptor.” And think how lucky he is to work the elementary school. A junior high kid on a bike wouldn’t even have to stand on the pedals to get away.