It’s been a long week for many Americans — what was meant to be Election Night turned slowly, but surely, into Election Week. It was a week plagued by lies, frivolous lawsuits, and pundits being even more pundit-y than they already are. But fortunately, the added chaos gave plenty of fodder for the nation’s top political cartoonists. A political cartoon is made for the purpose of conveying editorial commentary on politics, politicians, and current events. Such cartoons play a key role in the political discourse of a society that provides for freedom of speech and of the press — particularly w ..read more

A few years ago, some of my best friends forced me to watch a movie that they said I would be quoting for the rest of my life. I wish that it wasn’t true, but just moments after finishing Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, I understood their point: this was a genius movie. Here’s the trailer for the 2006 mockumentary comedy film staring Sacha Baron Cohen: A few weeks ago, it was announced that there would be a sequel: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan ..read more

Amos Tversky was one of the greatest psychologists ever—in fact, he may have been one of the smartest academics to ever grace this earth. His peers thought so highly of him that there was a one-part test of measuring intelligence based on him. As told by psychologist Adam Alter, the Tversky intelligence test was “The fast you realized Tversky was smarter than you, the smarter you were.” His early work with his fellow psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, focused on the psychology of prediction and judgement. Later, they would work together to develop prospect theory, which aimed to explain irrational ..read more

As I watched the Vice Presidential Debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris this past week, I, alongside many other viewers, thought that a fly had landed on my screen. As I took to twitter (to tweet “THE FLY“, the social media butterfly that I am), I saw that millions all around the country had also seen a fly on top of Vice President Mike Pence’s head for several minutes. Tweets flew in from all over the world, and before the end of the week, Saturday Night Live had capitalized on the madness with their cold open: SNL’s Cold Open from October 10, 2020 As such, I be ..read more

We know that film can have a profound impact on the world, but this is especially the case for comedic films. Take Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 satire, The Great Dictator, where Chaplin parodies Hitler and the Nazi regime. The film tells the story of a Jewish barber, played by Chaplin, who is mistaken for a dictator he resembles and is asked to take his place. Numerous other directors have been influenced by this idea, notably Stanley Kubrick, Mel Brooks, Wes Anderson, and Chuck Jones. Some modern films follow a similar plot such as The Dictator, The Interview, and Jojo Rabbit ..read more

Note from Zev: Hi everyone! This week, I asked my friend Vedika, who runs a newsletter called “Caffeine for Your Inbox,” to write this week’s post. She writes a lot on self-improvement, so I figured she’d be a good person to talk about humor in that context — More about her below! I always get the best ideas at the worst times. There’s nothing like frantically writing down an idea while watching the main character confess his love on a rom-com at girls’ night.  But there’s a reason ideas come at such inopportune times. When we’re relaxed, our minds are at their most creative. Because they ..read more

The Far Side Cartoon on Laughter When I was young, I was the victim of many growing pains. For those of you who are unaware to my height, I am 6′ 3″ — and five of those inches were added over the span of just six months. Full of pain from both growing and from walking into walls as I began to navigate around in my new and elongated body, I was told by some family members to make jokes about it; that if I joked about my pain, the laughter would be the best medicine. So I did, and it kind of worked! But is laughter actually the best medicine? Carl Reiner, one of my comedy heroes, firmly believes ..read more

Comic by Andy Marlette 2020 has been a year unlike any other. Plagued by a literal plague, millions of people have been under lockdown, prevented from ever leaving their house except for bare necessities – and even then, we have to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. People have been stuck with nothing but an internet connection and pets. Hundreds of thousands have died. So naturally, there are jokes made about the entire situation. One tweet read, “Unreasonably dark joke, but shouldn’t we wait until after the pandemic to fill out the [2020 US] census?” The joke ..read more

  You can see on my Impossible List all of the things I want to accomplish throughout my life. I am glad to say that this morning, I reached 1000 ELO for Chess, which is the first step in a very long way to becoming better at this hobby that I’ve picked up over the summer. Let me know if you want to play! My username on chess.com, as you can see, is zevthewolf. Read more about ELO here. The post Impossible List Update: 1000 Chess.com ELO appeared first on Zev Burton ..read more

The vast majority of this blog has been and will be covering humor in times of conflict or for the expressed purpose of preventing war in the future. However, this does not mean that the benefits of humor in international relations should be limited to merely battle—for example, the global issue of climate change, one of the more dire threats to the human race as a whole, is a place where comedy should be encouraged. This concept appears counter-intuitive, as climate change has caused myriads of environmental, migratory, and human rights issues that could take up an entire library, let al ..read more