"I am amazed at radio DJ's today. I am firmly convinced that AM on my radio stands for Absolute Moron. I will not begin to tell you what FM stands for."

Things I Learned from Watching TV ~ Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people--whether they're employed or not. ~ At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil. ~ Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one. ~ Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society. ~ Extremely beautiful and intelligent women are likely to become prostitutes or welders. ~ It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts--your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors. ~ When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish. ~ Radiation cause interesting mutations--not to your future children, but to you, right then and there. ~ If you are blond and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22. ~ Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement. ~ Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape. ~ During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once. ~ Most dogs are immortal. ~ All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread. ~ It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down. ~ Once applied, lipstick will never rub off--even while scuba diving. ~ The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty. ~ You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home. ~ Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do. ~ The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris. ~ A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds. ~ If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long. ~ Kitchens don't have light switches. ~ If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear. ~ Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say "Enter Password Now." ~ Any person waking from a nightmare will bolt upright and pant. ~ It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations. ~ Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments. ~ All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off. ~ A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty. ~ If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps. ~ Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite. ~ When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other. ~ You can always find a chainsaw when you need one. ~ An electric fence, powerful enough to kill a dinosaur, will cause no lasting damage to an eight-year-old child. ~ Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment.

Hypocrite: Someone who complains there is too much sex and violence on his VCR.

Not only the humor we make, but also the humor that amuses us, is important. A man may refrain from making fun of someone in the other’s presence, but will let loose his mockery in private to his wife or close friend. True, he will not create the havoc which would have been the case had he released his sarcasm in public. Nevertheless, what we laugh at, even in solitude, is significant. The German author Goethe said, “By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at.” The author of Ecclesiasticus put it this way, “A man’s grinning laughter shows the kind of man he is.” Another has put it, “What we laugh at is a window to our minds. Our jokes reveal our inner nature better than our set speeches. If you are amused by an off-color story, it points up the impurity of your heart. If you laugh at another’s serious accident, it shows cruelty deep within. If you overly indulge in caustic wit, it may indicate envy of the person against which your barbs are directed, and even beyond that, basic insecurity. If you are extremely addicted to punning, a dyed-in-the-wool punster, your constant conflicting play on words may result from your own conflicting feelings within. If you make light of holy subjects, it reveals profanity inside. Perhaps the words of Jesus could be paraphrased, admittedly giving only a partial explanation of the text, “By thy humor shalt thou he justified, and by thy humor shalt thou be condemned” (Matthew 12:37). If only one person in the world on only one occasion was guilty of just one bit of offside humor, he would still need the blood of Jesus Christ for cleansing. The choice of entertainment via radio, TV and literature, on the part of many, falls short of Christian grace, even short of the standard of enlightened nature. To avoid this blemish of personal piety we need to know when to laugh and when not to. Humor leaps outside its legitimate sphere when it trespasses on the suggestive, the sarcastic, the silly and the sacrilegious.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

“Today’s Christianity is a matter of being elevated for an hour once a week just as in the theater. It is now used to hearing everything without having the remotest notion of doing something.”