When you think about it, “The only thing we have to to fear is fear itself” is kind of a creepy thought. Great, now on top of all the other legitimate fears people had back then, they had to fear fear too? No wonder they called those times The Great Depression. What was Roosevelt thinking?

Who’s idea was it to install televisions on top of every pump at gas stations? More importantly, can that guy be legally taken out and shot down like a rabid dog? Is there anybody around who thought the gas-pumping experience needed to be enhanced with blaring news reports? How much per-gallon extra is this service costing us? Enough to hire someone to pump the gas for us again, maybe squeegee the windshield and check the oil?

Was there a public clamor around 10 years ago for television shows with no scripts, no stories and no actors? Other than the news, that is, which was already depressing enough. Now we’re stuck with with a contest where one reality show tries to out-moron the next one and, truth be told, there’s a lot of stiff competition for Dumbest Idea and Biggest Jackass.

How pressing a need did we have for text-messaging? Is it filling any sort of gaping void in our lives? Most of us figure, well, we’ve already got these cell phones right there in the old pocket, call me, I’m available. Let’s talk. The whole thing takes less than a minute, unlike the texting deal, which eats up valuable chunks of our lives for frivolous bullshit that can wait, like forever. Never mind texting me instructions in a one-sided conversation, we already have e-mail for that. Anything so pressing that it can’t wait just might be a good time to actually speak to someone. Like a friggin’ therapist, maybe. You can even text your sessions with those ineffectual clowns and leave the rest of us alone. It’s a win-win situation for text addicts and their victims. They won’t be cured, of course, but we won’t have to know about it one way or the next.

Since when did NASCAR become a mainstream sport? Bad enough we have that punching-on-iceskates fiasco called hockey, now we’re supposed to watch rednecks drive around in ovals? Why? And then we have to consider these guys athletes and not lunatics? Fat chance. Pretty much any driver can turn left all day. The only thing to look forward to at one of these races is a spectacular crash, and that’s pretty morbid. Which is why most of us, not giving a rat’s ass who won the damned silly race, tune in to the sports news highlights shows where only the crashes are featured. It’s a huge time saver.

Every so often you’re at your computer and a window pops up telling you that new software or an important upgrade is available. Which sort of makes you wonder what’s wrong with your machine as it is, so you push the right buttons, punch in your secret password and BIngo!, the newest information is uploaded. The only thing is that afterwards you don’t notice any difference at all in your computer’s performance. So you wonder if (A.) this is some sort of scam, or (B.) you’ve just surrendered a whole bunch of megabytes of memory for a feature you’ll never use in the course of your natural life.

Okay, so now we drink our water in bottles and pay a dollar for the privilege. We carry it around with us like we’re crossing the desert. We’ll cede that little piece of absurdity, it’s sort of too late in the game to question that whole deal. Do we have to know what the ingredients are? There shouldn’t be any at all other than water, no? So what’s with the calorie counts and vitamin percentage lists (zero, zero, zero and zero)? If they feel the need to print something on these labels, how about  jokes? Other than the one about charging us a dollar to drink water, that is. That would just be rubbing it in.

Who decided that dogs had to be neutered? Wouldn’t a vasectomy do the trick? How would any of us like to be owned and dominated, and on top of that robbed of the relief of being able to hump each other? That’s just wrong. Bad enough the dopey names we give these poor creatures. Give little Fluffy at least the dignity of keeping his nuts. And we call this the “humane” thing to do! If it was you facing a knife to your privates, you’d probably want to slow down and take a few moments to rethink that whole humanity thing. Few among us would say “Stop me before I screw again!”

Do we need TV sets with DVD players in the minivan to amuse Pee Wee on the way to soccer practice? Okay, the little ones may not be the most riveting of conversationalists, but they’re never going to get there if no one ever talks to them. Shutting them up with dopey video games and constant TV shows isn’t doing them any favors. Sooner or later they’ll be expected to participate in at least some form of human interaction. And if you’re taking a long trip, why give them one more thing to fight over in the back seat? What ever happened to yelling at your kids when they misbehave, or threatening to turn this car right around? If you’re going to traumatize the tykes, might as well do it right.

Which one of us thought it would be great if a dozen people on TV could explain to us what we just heard in our native language and saw with our own eyes? Used to be just the one guy after a presidential speech or some big news event, and he was plenty annoying enough. Now we’ve got committees of interpreters of things that need no interpretation. There’s still the one main guy, but he keeps calling on “experts” of one sort or another to put their two cents in for a more “in-depth analysis,” or as in-depth as these clods can manage in 30-second sound bytes. According to the committee, you did not hear what you thought you heard, and did not see what was plain as day. Who knew we were so stupid? It’s pretty humbling, no?

There are worse things that being obnoxious. You could be obnoxious and dead. Obnoxious you can fix, but there’s no known remedy for dead.

In our ongoing quest for the perfect set of Rules For Gentlemen in this rapidly changing modern world, we submit the following:

A gentleman never worries about his place in Gentleman History.

When confronted with a choice between right and wrong, a gentleman carefully weighs his options and picks what is best for his own interests.

A gentleman is always respectful of the feelings of others. Unless, of course, they are irritating the gentleman. Only then is it permissible to impugn their character, curse the day they were born and completely humiliate them in public. (A gentleman does not do things by half-measures!)

When his lady asks who are the other ladies in his life, a gentleman always lies with a straight face. Ladies are quite discerning and can detect even the merest whiff of fear. Be of stout heart and state your emphatic denials boldly! 

Activities for or which a gentleman always wears gloves: Attending the theater, playing polo and committing a felony.

When calling on a lady it is customary for a gentleman to present her servant with a business card. There is no law saying that it can’t be the business card of someone with a far more impressive title than oneself. After all, he is not there for a business meeting, but rather the business of meeting.

A gentleman does not cry “Fire!” in a crowded theater, no matter how excruciatingly boring the opera or ballet his lady has dragged him to see. If he expects any of the lady’s slippery triangle afterwards, a gentleman endures!

When paying for dinner with a lady using a stolen credit card, a gentleman always makes sure the card is valid immediately beforehand by calling the 800 number on the card from a public telephone and not his own cell phone.

Wearing a tuxedo is no excuse for a gentleman to feel superior, especially if one is a theater usher or busboy.

A gentleman does not change the settings on someone else’s computer. Simply check your e-mail, log out and thank your host.

Similarly, when a gentleman is conducting a computer scam, he does not hack into his victims’ bank accounts from the computer of a friend. Even one’s closest intimates might crack under interrogation. Instead, it is recommended that he break into a stranger’s home or office and do his dirty work from their computer. 

When a gentleman is arrested, he does not do the shameful “Perp Walk” with his head ducked down or his face hidden by his stylish overcoat. That behavior reeks of guilt, poor breeding and boorish tendencies. A true gentleman affects his usual jaunty air, holds his head up, looks the camera straight in the eye and smiles his most defiant and dignified smile, or at least as dignified as can be managed under the circumstances.

When out on bail, a gentleman does not engage in further criminal activity unless he is positive it will go undetected.

When in prison, if a gentleman drops his soap in the shower, he allows another inmate to bend over and retrieve it for him. He thanks him graciously afterward. If warranted, perhaps he offers him a pack of cigarettes.

When affecting one’s escape from incarceration, a gentleman disposes of his prison garb as soon as possible, preferably donning a subtle ensemble blending in with one’s surroundings. This is no time for a formal wear if one is escaping from a rural area populated by casually dressed people. That is simply bad form and an invitation to swift re-capture! Until such time as one establishes a new identity in a faraway place and obtains suitable plastic surgery, subtlety is the best policy. A gentleman knows when and when not to shine. Such awareness is indicative of impeccable judgement and superior breeding, hallmarks of the true gentleman

Don’t even try to figure out the deal with reality TV shows. Your brain will swell inside your skull and bits of it will stick out of your ears and nose and your eyes will bulge like a dead fish. Keep the remote handy as a preventative measure.

Join host Jim Welch on this week’s unexciting new episode of “America’s Least Wanted,” the show that profiles those people that America just wants to go away. Whether they are annoying celebrities, crooked politicians or greedy corporate princes, America’ Least Wanted fearlessly does not pursue their whereabouts or praise them in any way. The manhunt doesn’t start right now:

TOM CRUISE: The Scientology evangelist and thick slice of cinematic ham has been annoying America for the better part of two decades. Every fifth or sixth movie this half-pint egomaniac will turn in a good performance, letting everybody know that he is at least capable of being a fine actor, but the great majority of his work makes William Shatner look nuanced and subtle by comparison. In the past couple of years he’s really been getting on the world’s nerves, turning up on talk show after talk show spouting some real dense bullshit about his religion and making a series of bad movies where he overdoes his schtick to the point of embarrassment. This mental midget of a man/child needs a time out. 

GOVERNOR ROD BLAGOJEVICH: This sad clown who’s name sounds like a Russian drinking toast (Blah-Goy-avitch!) is the Governor of Illinois who tried to sell President Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. Not only that, he said so repeatedly over the phone and got himself recorded a whole bunch of times. Then he denies the whole thing, saying it was taken out of context and refuses to go away. How “I want to maximize the monetary worth of the seat” or “I want half a million dollars and a job for my wife for Obama’s Senate seat” are out of context is a mystery to most listeners, unless maybe he was really referring to a murder he was planning and the bribes just came up as a side issue. Unfortunately the guy is not stupid-funny like Bush The Younger or forcefully brazen like Chicago’s late boss of all political bosses Richard Daley and is a disgrace to his Moe Howard haircut. Time’s up!

DONALD TRUMP: Never mind. It seems the guy has gone away. Be thankful for small miracles.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Other than Shotgun Dick Cheney, Ms. Rice is the only other prominent member of the Bush The Younger Gang to last the whole eight sordid years. Now that the rest of them are slinking away in ignominy, she’s signing up with the Philip Morris agency, looking to cash in big time on her part in The Worst Administration in History And Into The Future For All Time Forever. While people used to think she was some sort of enigmatic mystery woman with more to her than meets the eye, that turned out not to be the case. She stuck around too long and her character, or rather her glaring lack of same, was revealed. She is as devoid of personality as she is of emotions and Philip Morris will have a hard sell with this amazingly uninteresting person who should have had a fascinating back story but simply doesn’t. Sorry, Condee, but you are The Woman Who Wasn’t There. Stay that way.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: If we need to hear from fat drug addicts with an attitude and no brains at all, well, there’s always Hollywood and the world of Rock & Roll, where there’s no shortage of such people. At least with our fat drug-addled actors and musicians, you get some talent to go along with the contradictory nonsense they spew. With this guy, the poster boy for the failure and collapse of the neo-conmen, you only get the whining. And he can take poster girl Anne Coulter with him. Their entertainment value expiration date has long since expired and they’re starting to stink up the joint.

MICHAEL MOORER: Until he stops putting himself in his documentaries, it’s time for this fat obnoxious slob to take a sabbatical too. While his heart may be in the right place, his rumpled baseball caps and homeless guy chic are starting to get on everybody’s nerves. Maybe he can start filming an expose of condescending fat guys who are strangers to the comb and the razor and dress like slobs and think everybody else is stupid. Or he could set up Limbaugh and himself in a cage match, the winner to take all the Twinkies.

VINCE OFFER: The SHAMWOW! guy has now branched out to a new product, a flimsy vegetable chopper reminiscent of the Veg-O-Matic. Somebody stop him before we’ve got another Ron Popeil or Billy Mays on our hands! You watching the camera, guy? We can’t do this all day…

THE PLACE-IN-HISTORY CLOWNS: Bad enough we’ve had a year of TV talking heads debating where Bush The Younger’s place in history will be (At the very bottom, fools!), now they’re starting on Obama’s place in history! While he is certain to go down in history as he first black guy elected to the Presidency, outside of that no-brainer maybe we should give the guy a full week in office before we start jabbering about this meaningless nonsense. Just a suggestion. Can we get these people some help? Can we get them off the air? Can we give them their own place in history, like extinct?

Tune in next week when America’s Least Wanted doesn’t pursue the whereabouts of Dick Morris, Bill O’Really, Paris Hilton and Karl Rove. These less-than-riveting celebrities and politicians have used up their 15 minutes of fame without having contributed a dime’s worth of anything useful or memorable. Join ALW’s indifferent farewells to these and more of America’s Least Wanted and least interesting people. Go ahead, don’t stay tuned and touch that dial all you like! It’s not like you’re missing anything.

While there is nothing wrong with the name Chauncey, it is pretty funny. Careful with doling that one out to an unsuspecting child. If the kid has no aspirations to a career in comedy, theater criticism or as a personal valet to some baron or duke, he’s in a world of trouble.

The heck with all that bad news circulating lately. It’s getting pretty monotonous so perhaps this is a day to ignore all that. We are not presidents and kings with the world on our shoulders and we’re not magicians who can Abra Cadabra life’s troubles away. What we can do, however, is change the world every single day in little ways. Toss a few snowballs around with some little kids, spend some time with that old granny down the block, maybe help her do some shopping. She’s pretty good company and has seen a lot and knows a lot and still has a positive outlook and a ton of curiosity. There’s a lesson there for those of us ground down by bad tidings. Odds are Granny has experienced far worse in her many years on this planet and has come out the other side just fine.

Take a walk around your neighborhood. Sure are a hell of a lot of people around, no? No shortage of those, and the vast majority of them are walking miracles, full of insights that wouldn’t occur to you and eager to hear your side of the story too. Of course here’s always a few bitter and nasty souls here and there, but too few to worry about. They’re best left alone to their bitterness unless you think you can reach them somehow, and that is always a possibility if you have the love and the patience. The best part of life is that it isn’t over yet and wonders and miracles are always around us, everywhere at all times. And to gain access to them, all we need to do is open our eyes. Those rambunctious guys digging up the street with their jackhammers and bulldozers? They know exactly what’s down there and how to fix it. How cool is that?

That loopy little kid tearing up and down the sidewalk all the time? He’s full of fun and whacky knowledge you haven’t noticed and if you can get him to slow down and share some if it you’ll be glad you did. He knows that Mrs. Miller’s dog loves licorice just as much as he does and where all the best puddles form when it rains.You didn’t know that! What about those giggling teenage girls in front of your neighbor’s house all the time? That’s music they’re making, part of the soundtrack of your everyday life. Those old guys in the park looking like they’re arguing all the time?  Well, they are, and that’s how they communicate and share their love. And there’s centuries of experience there when you get a few of them together. Listen and learn.

That lady in the doctor’s office with the frazzled look and the half moon eyeglasses? She runs the place and knows more about the patients than the doctor. And if you’re nice to her you can get an appointment sooner rather than later. Those cops who drive by slow all the time looking all serious? They just want to get through the day with nothing bad to report and go home to their families with some good news. How about all those young singles crowding the local taverns? They’re just looking to connect, to somehow find love and friendship and good times and tell the world that they are alive and they are somebody. If it doesn’t always work out, well, what does? There’s always tomorrow.

How about those exotic parrots from South America that somehow made themselves a home in New York City? They’re blue and green and yellow and they squawk a lot about the cold weather, but still they figure out a way to thrive and survive and raise their young. Remind you of anybody? Everybody?  Their music is part of the soundtrack too, and their brilliant colors only add to the visuals. And if the plain brown little birds are a little jealous, well, there’s nothing to be done about that. Such is life, there’s always another delicate little beauty parading around, and all we can do is show our appreciation and give thanks that we are here and that our eyes are wide open. Life is good and wonders abound.

Life isn’t so bad. It’s life without parole that’s a real challenge.

As the comedy industry mourns the loss of its main inspiration with the end of the Bush The Younger Era, another industry rises. Such is the cyclical nature of life. Taking up the slack in ready-made entertainment will be the neo-conservative revisionists, already earnestly telling the world that what we witnessed and luckily survived for the past 8 years wasn’t what we thought it was. It seems that Bush The Younger wasn’t really a neo-con at all, but a liberal. Who knew? Their message is that Bush somehow infiltrated the Republican Party, got elected president and then secretly went about the business of implementing a leftist agenda, and that’s why he left the country in such a shambles! Interesting theory. While this betrayal theory is complete bull, that’s their story and they’re sticking to it, and it does make for some solid entertainment. Looks like Bill O’Really is going to have a lot of company and some stiff competition in the I-Just-Made-This-Up category of political comedy.

The country being in such an awful mess, we’ll take our laughs where we can find them. While the regular comedians recover from the shock of having to write their own material again, we look to Bush The Younger’s former cheerleading squad for off-the-wall diversion. Hell, this Obama guy is way too normal and well-adjusted for real belly laughs, and hasn’t done anything major yet to for the neoconmen to sink their fangs into, so for now, it’s fantasy time. And if you’re a conservative, neo or otherwise, fantasy is the only sensible refuge these days. LIke a scientist faced with his life’s work being proved completely wrong, the facts just do not compute as a state of shock shields the mind and body from trauma. Nature is good to us like that, preventing countless head explosions.

Denial is is a powerful force within us, often serving to soften the blows of harsh reality. With most of us, that gradually breaks down into acceptance of what is real. But thankfully not with all of us. This would be a boring word if everybody was sane. The neo-cons, for years armchair geniuses confident that their theories and policies were the only proper approach to politics and life itself, all of a sudden got to implement their ideas in 2001. Their moment in the sun had arrived and they made the most of it. And for 8 long years they put their ideas into practice and it turned out that they were of the flat-earth variety, one disaster after another in the unforgiving arena of field-testing one’s theories. Some say that catastrophic events, namely the 9/11 attacks on America, changed the dynamic of the experiment and skewed the results. Never mind that political theories are supposed to work in good times or bad, war or peace. Either the earth is flat or round, period. 

Well, it turns out the world really is round and voters agreed so these people are back to doing what they do best; being angry misunderstood geniuses. It’s better that way, for them and for the rest of us. They get to write and broadcast their delusional gibberish and we get them out our hair and enjoy the resulting entertainment value of their whining. It’s a win-win situation while clearer heads go about the business of straightening out the mess Bush The Younger and his neo-con gang have left us. There’s not many laughs in smart people doing their jobs properly. Many of us will miss the slapstick government, the fascist tendencies and the sheer bumbling incompetence of the past 8 years. After all, it was quite entertaining, if you don’t pay too much attention to all that devastating pain and loss. 

Not only that, those 8 years served to focus our minds on what was really important, the values that made America America in the first place. Like they say, you don’t know what you’ve got until you lose it. It turns out Americans sort of like The Bill of Rights and do not like attacking other nations for no reason at all. We’re also not so crazy about torture and secret prisons. It seems we wouldn’t mind a little policing of the financial institutions that power our economy. We also enjoy it when the government doesn’t allow our major cities to drown when natural disasters strike. Maybe we’d like to see some actual science applied to solving some real tough problems. And we like our neo-conservatives where they belong: out of power and back to their customary job of providing us with solid comedy entertainment.