"Laughter is the best medicine" was a two page section of Reader's Digest. My mother was gifted a lifetime subscription in 1937, when she was top student in her high school graduating class. It followed her from Jefferson, to Amity, and to Portland for over 70 years. I was first to pick it up and check out the 4 or 5 joke sections. In the broadest scheme-of-things, comedy and laughter are some of society's best medicines. The physiology of laughter has been studied for quite some time. Norman Cousins, founder and editor of the Progressive Magazine, credits laughter with the cure of his incurable disease. We know that laughter reduces adrenalin and promotes serotonin production, both gut and serum levels. It feels good to laugh.
Laughter, whether with someone, or at someone, influences our community attitudes and often is the only "politically appropriate" means of criticizing those who rule. The court jester's of our European past were the only members of the court that could critical, and not face beheading or imprisonment and torture. This has probably been true because it is very difficult to distinguish laughing with you from laughing at you. Will Rogers was probably America's most influential court jester. Stand up has afforded a stage for political and cultural critique. As Hollywood lost its major studio rule, movies have afforded a similar medium of influence. The political cartoonist is yet another vehicle of change and influence, but it has suffered as print has dramatically lost its strenght and presence. The social media, blogs and YouTube stations have quickly emerged as the most unconstrained mediums of influence. We all owe a great bit of gratitude to those jester's, troubadour's and comedians, for the medicine they have shared with each of us, and with society.
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