'Diagnose and adios'*

No Fear, no frills

Liz Carr: "Many people use the 'right' language, but still see me as a cripple." Photograph: Graham Turner

"There is an awkward silence as the 400-strong audience at the Komedia comedy club in Brighton watch Liz Carr make her way up a ramp at the side ofthe stage. Carr, the last of 12 stand-up comedians to take the stage,knows her entrance in a wheelchair is the cause of the tension, but she soon brings the house down with a cocktail of caustic observational gags about disability and sexuality."

Chuckle here.
Hear here.

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Poverty-Stricken Africans To Receive Desperately Needed Bibles

Having just returned from drought sticken East Africa this article stood out...

More than 60,000 urgently needed Bibles arrived to allay suffering throughout the famine-stricken nation of Niger Friday, in one of the largest humanitarian-relief operations ever attempted by a Christian ministry.

More here.

 

The Swift Report: White House Exploring 'Rapture' Contingency Plans

The White House is reportedly exploring contingency plans in the event that President Bush and other prominent Christians are 'raptured.' But succession plans are complicated by Vice President Dick Cheney's poor health and the fact that Representative Tom DeLay, like President Bush, will be summoned to heaven along with millions of other Christians.

Rise here.

Move to Alaska quick, Uncle Ted may soon be President Ted.

World's Scientists Admit They Just Don't Like Mice

Nearly 700 scientists representing 27 countries convened at the University of Zurich Monday to formally announce that their experimentation on mice has been motivated not by a desire to advance human knowledge, but out of sheer distaste for the furry little rodents.

More here.

BBC - Ouch! Disability Magazine

Ouch! - the BBC's disability magazine, containing news, features, columnists, comedy and chat community, reflecting the experiences of disabled people.

More here.

Here and Now : Jonathan Katz Lives and Laughs with MS

Jonathan Katz' life has been a real barrel of laughs. A Boston-based stand up comic, he contributed to Comedy Central's early success with the wildly popular "Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist," the animated shrink to the comic stars such as Katherine O'Hara.

Jonathan Katz is also a songwriter, and a compilation of his tunes is called "Easy Listening...but Not That Easy." He co-wrote "House of Games" with David Mamet, appeared as an actor in "Daddy Day Care" and authored a book titled "To Do Lists of the Dead."

Jonathan Katz was diagnosed in 1997 with Multiple Sclorosis. Jonathan Katz joins us in the studio to talk about keeping your wits about you, and being witty, when you're diagnosed with a debilitating disease.

Listen here

The Sanctity of Marriage

Perhaps sensing that the Bob Jones University crowd might not be as motivated towards electoral politics as they would like, the Bush administration has come out of the closet supporting a Constitutional amendment to cement the status of gay and lesbian Americans as second-class citizens. Casting the amendment as necessary to protect the "sanctity of marriage," Bush has found the perfect issue to move the debate towards more comfortable ground than the war in Iraq, the economy, and his Vietnam era service record. But with each passing day, the spectacle of the ongoing celebration of love and devotion by monogamous gay couples in San Francisco is convincing more and more heterosexual Americans that married gays pose no real threat to them, or to the sanctity of their marriages. So, to avoid the perception that this amendment is really a political stunt designed by Karl Rove to mobilize Bush's base, Bush needs to go further, get out in front of the curve, and really push for getting the amendment passed. I have a few suggestions for the Bush team.

More here.

Signspotting

Travelers often have to depend on signs... to navigate through a town, locate their hotel, even obey the law. A scary thought if you've ever come across any of these publicly posted absurdities.

Jane and I have talked about doing a coffee table book of silly signs we encounter on our travels. This website beat us to it.

Sign here.

Rumsfeld Ramble Wins UK 'Foot in Mouth' Award

"Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know," Rumsfeld told a news briefing.
"We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Read it here.

Booby prize went to Arnold "I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman"

Comedy Central to Air Pryor Special

"It's not a B.S. didn't-he-USED-to-be-great tribute. It's a funny (expletive) show. I may have MS, but I ain't dead yet, (expletive)," Pryor said in a statement Tuesday.

$#%$# it here.

'Opus' Comic Strip Debuts in Newspapers

About time:

Opus is back waddling across the comics pages not because funnies fans need him but because his creator, Berkeley Breathed, thinks the penguin needs "finishing."

Read more here.

Take another peek at Opus here, here and here.

Funny Times Cartoon Of The Week

Check this out every week, then subscribe. Funny newspaper!

Having a laugh in Ethiopia

An Ethiopian man has broken his own unofficial world record for laughing non-stop.

"Belachew thinks laughing is very therapeutic and in a country where 13 million people need food aid there is not always much to laugh about.

"We are living full of stress... Natural disasters, economical, political, social problems... My aim is to minimise this stress. Please let us communicate by smiling," he said.

"Our slogan is 'laughter, love, peace for all human beings'." "

Guffaw here.

Hear here.

Multiple Sclerosis Sucks

This is the website that I wish I had written, read it here at multiplesclerosissucks.com.

"I think it is important that MS sufferers and their caregivers maintain a sense of humor. I've read that humor can improve health, and I'm pretty sure that it improves the quality of life. Most of the MS literature that I've read has been sensitive, sensible, serious, and scary, and therefore runs the risk of being turgid, tedious, and trite. If you have MS and you're not ready for humor yet - many MS patients will take years to reach that point and some will never get there - then read no further. If you don't have MS and are looking for humor only, I should warn you that MS is a serious subject so if you are squeamish, then likewise, now is a good time to bail out."

"I've received lots of emails telling me second-hand stories about the frustrating empathy, or lack thereof, that MS engenders in people who really should know better. I'm ashamed to say that most of these people lacking in empathy are the male spouses, lovers, or bosses of female MS sufferers. Rather than say "some people are just jerks", which is true but not a productive thing to say, I'd like to propose the MS Perspective Kit for people who lack the ability to see things from the right perspective."

Here's a good place to start.