Realize to some degree this is a bit of a "first world/me" problem, but I'm having a hard time here.
It seems, as you've likely determined, I'm what passes for comic relief on these pages. OK, maybe not "comic," which implies, you know, funny. "Comic" as in, "not offering up an opinion on the future of the nation or world or universe or whatever but rather looking for as close to an amusing take on things in general as I can."
OK, a little wordy. Let's go with "light-hearted," at least as a generic category.
Maybe you laugh. Maybe you roll your eyes. I mean, welcome to my children's life. But if you're reading this to find out about new education standards and how we should be approaching our relationship with Canada, maybe another source might be best. I'm sort of the seltzer to the cold water other columnists throw. Same impact, but I'm a bit more fizzy.
Which is fine, well and good and potentially, at least, serves a purpose. It's just that, given the nature of the world right now, being light-hearted is perhaps a hill I'm not quite capable of climbing. I mean, it's hard.
Look, I get the implication of the old saw that time plus tragedy equals humor. It's just that we really haven't had enough of the former and way too much of the latter to get to that result. And with the current pace of things, about the time we get a little room for perspective, we get slammed with another headline that pushes any contemplation out of our minds in favor of the current world fire drill.
At this point I long for the good old days when you could expect politicians to provide comic fodder by hitting on staffers rather than enticing rebellion or recommending dangerous medical practices without the benefit of a license to do so. When saying property in California was hot was an economic rather than a physical description. And when the biggest complaint most people had with their doctors was that they were telling them to lay off the bacon sandwiches and maybe take a walk every now and then.
But, that's not the world we live in right now, so I'm left with, well, an impossible task.
Take Afghanistan. We ended a terrible situation with a terrible situation punctuated with a horrible situation. When the best you can say about something is it's over, that's probably not a good indication it was a good idea to start with.
More regionally, what isn't on fire in the United States appears to be under water. Apparently we've pushed Mother Nature to the point where she's not playing nice anymore, and is, in fact, behaving less maternally and more like your crazy uncle after he's been in the moonshine.
Apparently at this point, due to Hurricane Ida, the entire city of New Orleans is without electricity, there is extensive damage requiring the U.S. military to fix and there are giant holes forming in highways leading out of the state. And people are saying how lucky they are.
Of course, if you have residents of your city still living in temporary housing provided after the last catastrophic hurricane smacked into them, perhaps just not being able to turn the lights on is a relative success. I mean, such strange times force us to redefine terms like "lucky." And "light-hearted."
And then there's the pandemic. Which would be funny if it weren't so sad ... nah, not really. There's not a lot of humor to be drawn from an illness that has claimed millions worldwide. But in place of light-heartedness, it is possible to substitute the ironic observation that many people are declining to take the vaccine because they claim they don't know what's in it or what the long-term consequences are. And yet many of these same folks are willing to dose themselves with horse de-wormer. I mean, I guess they can at least be sure they won't infect the rest of the livestock.
So, as you can readily see, finding levity in our current state (or actual state, since apparently Arkansas has worked itself into several talk show monologues. And not in a good way) is a tall order.
So, the best I can do is this. Monday was National Toasted Marshmallow Day. We need s'more holidays like that.
When in doubt, turn to Dad Jokes. It might be the best we've got.