They especially frowned upon their addiction to burning the land and soon they made laws against it turns out that native peoples had good reason to burn they understood fire has keys to optimizing the vitality and abundance of the landscape . Today contemporary science is integrating what indigenous science discovered over thousands of years of observation and trial and error and these 2 ways of knowing are coming together to create an emerging understanding of the beneficial role fire plays in managing landscapes it could signal the end to our misguided policy of fire suppression and the beginning of fire resilient communities with a new relationship to one of nature's most elemental and fearful forces. This is nature's Phoenix fire as medicine with fire ecologist Chad Hansen and Frank canal while Lake My name is Neil Harvey I'll be your host Welcome to the by any years revolution from the heart of nature. And. Fire is the the great shaper of pretty much everything that happens in forests and it's just hard intuitively for people to think about an area with a bunch of dead trees as being a part of ecological resilience as being good for about a versity it's an education effort especially when we've had decades of publicly funded advertising from the Us force or smoky the very telling people that fire destroys for us you know people think of fire in the forest the same way they think about fire with regard to their house fire burns your house it's destroyed fire burns in the forest if it's destroyed too but what the science is telling us is that couldn't be farther from the truth. Chad Hanson is a Ph d. Fire ecologist and co-founder of the John Muir Project an organization dedicated to the ecological management of us federal public forest lands Hansen is an innovative leader and reframing the ecological role of wild fire and educating the public about different approaches in 2015 the rough fire in California Sarah Nevada mountains made national news it was the peak of high intensity fires ripping through California amidst a multi-year drought when the flames threaten to engulf a 1000 year old giant sequoia redwood grove in Kings Canyon National Park firefighters made desperate and dangerous efforts to protect the grove as the flames raged many fire ecologists including Hanson told people that although it seemed counter-intuitive the fire was the best thing that could happen to the ancient tree grove that within a few years it would lead to spectacular regeneration various trees if you choose depend on fire in order to effectively reproduce giant sequoias for example they have cones that are called Seraphina's Which means is they've got these very very thick resins that the seeds are encased in and basically they need fire that's pretty hot in order to melt those resins and cones releases seeds and basically fire that takes all that Duff and litter on the forest floor the twigs and branches the needles and turns it into this very very nutrient rich bed of that helps germination and so after fires you get this big tackler regeneration of giant sequoias and these giant squid grows hadn't burned in more than a century and we've been essentially loving them to death thinking that we were protecting them by keeping fire out of course we're seeing 10050000 giant sequoias seedlings per acre. Chad Hanson has had a lifelong relationship with forests his parents had an old log cabin in the Eastern Sierra Nevada where he spent his childhood summers then his love of forests got transformed as the personal became political I started to get involved in force conservation work after I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada with my older brother in 1009 and started seeing all the clear cuts on national forest lands by the time we hit the northern and even more so in the Central North Cascades in organ Washington and I was shocked because I didn't realize that there was logging on the national forests I was 22 years old the time I thought national force or like national parks I thought they were all protected I was just absolutely stunned by the scale of the deforestation scale of habitat loss and I realized that what I thought were these vast limitless wild forests were actually being lost at a pace that I couldn't even comprehend horrified by the wholesale destruction Chad Hansen decided to look into the realities behind logging projects he discovered the timber and history was often justifying its vast clearcuts in recently burned woodlands as Forest Restoration the company's claimed charred forests had no ecological value they said their logging would have no negative impact in 2002 Hansen's organization the John Muir project worked with the Center for Biological Diversity to file a lawsuit against such a project in the Eldorado National Forest in the central Sierra Nevada when his team won a partial injunction he set out on a site visit to verify that the Forest Service was complying he also wanted to check on a spotted owl nest in a stand of old growth trees. There's a lot I had to pass or to get there so they had to stop what they were doing I nipped in a conversation with them with the form of a large and true and he said you know I can understand why you guys don't want to cut that stand of green trees down there you know as trees are alive but this area we're cutting here all these trees were killed what harm could possibly come of it what wildlife species could possibly use this and I thought that was a fascinating question that was 2002 I did not have an answer for and so I started looking into it Hanson learned that the concept of a burned out health scape couldn't be further from the truth areas that burn hot actually allow the ecological system to Renu and regenerate itself fire at a variety of intensities is critical to the survival of many other tree species as well as to a vast range of plants animals and insects that thrive on post fire habitat and together compose the symphony of biodiversity that defines a healthy forest. The dead trees attract what are called a wood burning beetles these are species that are native in these force and they've evolved over millennia receptors in their bodies to detect the heat or the smoke from fires from dozens of miles away so they'll make a beeline for the fire even before the smoke is clear in many cases and they lay their eggs on the bark of a fire killed tree in the larva develop in the boar under the bark and that's where they live they have the protection of the food they need to develop the woodpeckers like the black with Becker depend upon those and so they need a lot of dead trees in order to have enough food to survive dead trees are a little bit softer than trees so the woodpeckers excavate nest cavities in the dead trees. They create new ones every single year and all the other cavities that they create are available for secondary cavity nesting and species to use these are species that need cavities to survive but can't create their own so bluebirds not hatch is flying squirrels many many many different species of birds and mammals need these cavities and so. In other words species we call them keystone species because they create homes for all these other species and the flowering shrubs attract fly insects of flying insects provide food for fly catching birds and bats those tribes provide food for deer and elk a lot of Barberry producing black bears get fat on those before the winter so allows them to hibernate and it's great habitat for small mammals creates great hunting grounds for species like spotted owls. And so what you have is this very rich and colorful system that's created by fire that habitat what we call snags forest habitat technically called complex early Searle forest that's actually comparable to old growth forest in terms of native bout of ur city and wildlife abundance and it all comes down to the Habitat structures that are created by intense fire. We now know that fire adapted ecosystems actually need fire to thrive like the phoenix rising from the ashes. For people one of the most complex challenges is the differential between human time and nature's deep time giant sequoia groves operate in deep time with life cycles extending across millennia a long view indeed how can we understand and analyze natural systems that function on time scales that so greatly surpass our own living or cultural memory. Humans live on a very short relative to the life of a forest so we need to understand these processes on a much longer to understand some of these essential processes that are critical for biodiversity and for Ecological resilience may seem strange or scary to us from a human perspective and. Times but that doesn't mean that. When we return. Policy is catching up with deep ecology and. Explores the intimate relationships among forests and human culture from an indigenous science perspective this is nature's. Medicine. To the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature. 76 degrees. 72 in Salinas. To explore all available by radio shows podcasts and video programming please visit by in years dot co r g. Humility is our constant companion as we realize how little we really know and how little control we have over an unpredictable and in comprehensibly complex living nature restoration is largely a new science and we've never before faced the scale of destruction now confronting us fortunately an unprecedented coming together of different knowledge systems is unfolding rapidly in real time that can give us the insights and tools to bring ecological restoration into full flower just when it's needed most indigenous peoples around the world who've been observing and actively participating in these processes for millennia for both material and spiritual sustenance for 1st Peoples The quest is both technical and cosmological And so we talk about personal fire knowledge if you're a force dependent people as an engine is community or a fire adapted culture that every aspect of your culture relies upon fire in some beneficial way then you have a depth of knowledge all time knowledge that's part that's really the logical knowledge that spans all the biophysical with all the metaphysical So you have both the physical elements of it and you have the spirituality or the ceremonial aspects that combine together. Dr Frank canal a lake is a research ecologist with the u.s.d.a. Forest Service an indigenous scientist of Caracas Seneca Cherokee and Mexican ancestry he serves as chair of the traditional ecological knowledge section of the Ecological Society of America he works in the fire and fuels program of the Pacific Southwest Research Station in the Klamath Siskiyou by region Dr Frank lake has conducted extensive research into questions around wild lands fire fuels management and climate change in relation to tribal communities indigenous fire management is a highly developed science utilizing indigenous methods that work to sustain cultural landscapes ecosystems and people. You have at the time of settlement in the West you simply have tribal people using fire to augment our 2 if lighting it wasn't striking and burning areas and tribal people said well this area does better are more productive has more diversity of plants and animals yields more water so they were using fire to promote that tribes literally used fire from the coast to the highest alpine meadows and part of that which often people didn't associate or understand was it was both that natural cultural fire use that led to a lot of the diversity that was marveled at and was really seen as part of the pristine West if you see fire as medicine which is a good thing for the landscape a good thing for your family health and you use it frequently to consistently prescribe it at the right frequency the right seasonality the right intensity and even at the right scale or extent then you're managing a lot of diversity from materials that really from a tribal cultural perspective provide your foods your medicines your materials and that landscape is really tied to fire being your pharmacy your supermarket your hardware store and for some sacred places your church and if there's a link between powder versity or fire diversity and that of all those ecosystem services then the picture I want to paint is think about fire as being a main leveraging thing so you get the right dose of it and you want to be able to have food as medicine and food healthy for you you need to have access to clean quantity and quality of water and fire can provide that. Seeing fire as medicine has long shaped Frank canal a lake's work as a research scientist from childhood in the Siskiyou wilderness in far northern California he was raised with the cultural beliefs and knowledge systems of indigenous worldviews his life and the lives of his family and tribe revolved around the Pacific coast and the forests along the Klamath River his father and stepmother frequently participated in ceremonies and traditional healing practices they relied on local medicinal plants gathered acorns and huckleberries and fished seasonally for sustenance Lakes desire to become an environmental scientists was rooted in the unique training he received at sacred sites he was also compelled by the experience of his community working to maintain its land tenure and traditional way of life his people won hard fought battles to protect sacred sites from logging and to regain their traditional fishing rights and so I had really this duality of seeing natural resource and political issues around river fisheries conservation but then also that around forests and biodiversity and sacred site interesting conservation and that really heavily influenced me as a young person seeing the struggles in those dynamics and feeling like what is the solution and I think part of my training at those sacred places and did a subsistence activities was I am inheriting knowledge but with that knowledge as a responsibility to both family land and waters in community that means that both the human and biological community Frank Lake felt he could play a valuable role as a translator and bridge builder among federal land managers and tribal communities . When obstacles was well 1st off a lot of the Indian people get to see that they're just not something in the past they have to understand both as in a structure as a lamb manager that these are living communities who depend upon the river depend upon the forest to pin upon that biodiversity and we call that ecosystem services to perpetuate the traditions and that really what is a tribal trust resource is also in the best interests of society as a public trust resource a crucial obstacle lake wanted to dissolve was the centuries long policy of fire suppression based on the belief that fires destroy forests and should be prevented at all costs if forests are valuable only as board feet of lumber which has been the driving view of the u.s. Forest Service since its beginning than anything damaging a tree is lost revenue that mentality as fostered a policy of putting out every blaze and restricting local land management rights and it's no coincidence that policy happens to serve the vested interests that profit from fire suppression so back between 1000 to 1920 in that period in the west and across the nation there was a big debate both academically and I think policy wise of what they called the fallacy of light burning Are there was kind of a drug trade term called forestry which was you know Indians are burning to manage a range of diversity and resources some of those who had the timber interest didn't want the burning to happen because it was affecting the forest they wanted to grow trees which was a national economic interest and so on the heels of what became some bad fire seasons and some loss of life there became a strong emphasis on fire suppression that was one of the mechanisms that really began to limit the extent and application of tribal people in using fire but there was also even going back to the time of the Spanish in the missions the 1st law enacted in California was by a mission was to prevent the natives from burning. Well here's tribal people living on the landscape they's fire as a tool if we want to colonize and settle that same land Eliza's same resources then we have to figure out a way essentially to take care of the Indian and fire problem. To many people today it may seem as if we're experiencing more fires than ever but in fact because we've been putting out as many fires as possible for the past century or more forests are actually burning less often at all levels of intensity according to Chad Hansen this is true even when we factor climate change into the equation so he's educating policymakers in the public about the fire deficit advocating for more wildfire rather than less it's definitely a marketing challenge in the face of a deeply embedded Western view that fire is an exclusively destructive force to be controlled at all costs it at the same time fire really is an existential threat for the 99000000 people in the us who are at risk because their homes have encroached into what's called the wild lands urban interface so on while Chad Hansen strongly advocates for letting large back country fires burn he's clear odd about public safety he says we can learn to let fire have its way while also taking smart effective measures to protect homes. You're right now we're still rooted in a sort of 20th century even a late 19th century model where the fire issue is out there somewhere it's over the ridge or over the next ridge and right now Land Management is geared on fire suppression certainly some of those spent you know next to communities in communities when fires close but you know the majority is still spent in relatively remote back country forests and we need to be focusing our resources on protecting communities and making sure that people's homes don't burn when fires do occur because the fact is that this is not just a decision we can make Let's have less fire fires are going to happen we can't stop fire in these forests they're going to occur and so I think we need to focus on defensible space work which is really within 100 feet of individual structures make sure the structures are protected so we can allow fire to do its important ecologically beneficial work in the forests most homes don't burn and high intensity fires actually burn low intensity fires a great majority of homes of burning forest fires burning fires that creep along right up to the house and burn the house down back in Northern California Frank Lake has been working to support collaboration's across agencies N.G.O.s homeowners and tribes to collectively transform our understanding of the role of managed fire in the landscape working together with agency and tribal support community members in gauging prescribed burning to create defensible space around homes and properties the goal is to support a shift from immediate suppression towards a path that allows back country wildfires to burn it's also a healing return to ancient ways using traditional fire in a contemporary context as an example of what could be achieved through collective community effort Frank Lake arranged a controlled burn of his own property. It took a lot of. It took. To get my neighbor. To that point. Today is. Using traditional and contemporary. Achieve objectives and for me it was. A little. Ability for stewardship and we also achieved some research on the bugs. Student We improved between my neighbors and my property and. My valuation of nearly every. Trees across 5 to 7 acres. Very few. And yet. The Jays the squirrels the bear deer sign everything's tell me that good fire. Down here now if I can demonstrate my home. Safety for food security. Then I want to be something. About truly being a fire dependent person your family to your community. As we face the rising wave of a natural disasters caused by centuries of land mismanagement in the absence of a land ethic one of our best hopes is that today we have both traditional wisdom and modern science to help us learn again to lovingly and patiently attune our hands to the heartbeat of the land thanks to the decades of research advocacy and communication from visionaries such as Frank lake and Chad Hanson our societal doors of perception are beginning to swing open. The By any ears revolution from the heart of nature's a production of Bioneers and collective Heritage Institute executive producer Kenny OS ago written by Kenny asa bell and Teo Grossman senior producer and station relations Stephanie Welch producer Teo Grossman host and consulting producer Neil Harvey program engineer Emily Harris. Theme music is co-written by the bulk of forest people of Cameroon and beyond from the album east to west all royalties from the bucket compositions and performances go to the back of forest people through the charity global music exchange find out more that global music exchange. Additional music was made available by Rich good heart at Rich good heart dot com for more music information please visit Bioneers dot overarching. The opinions expressed in the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature are those of the presenters and are not necessarily those of pioneers and collective security institute the underwriters for this radio station My name is Neil Harvey thank you for listening I invite you to join the pioneers in inspiring a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life each other and future generations. This is program number 0517 this program was made possible in part by organic bellies pasture raised organic dairy products bringing the good from our family farmers to your table at Organic Valley dug co-op and by the generous support of listeners like you. On the next fresh air Hillary Clinton she has a new campaign memoir Well talk about candidate and President Trump chance of. Russian interference call me in the e-mails start by sharing with her my take away from the part of our previous interview that went viral the part about how she came to support federal marriage equality My take away is probably not what you think it is join us listen to fresh air today at 3 o'clock here on listener supported x. This is k.c. B.x. H.d. One San Luis Obispo one San are. Santa Barbara streaming online. Org Support for k c b x comes from the. Natural Foods co-op where you don't need to be a member to shop more they're adding new items every week the co-op is at 2494 Victoria Avenue one block east abroad or more at slow natural foods dot c o o p support for gay c.b.x. Also comes from the Central Coast writer's conference at Cuesta college September 28th through the 30th featuring workshops presented by faculty including poets children's writers Netflix stars in more learn more at the Central Coast writer's conference dot com Coming up next on his ideas fear followed by The Splendid Table today at 2 o'clock and fresh air at 3. The time is now 130 Thanks for listening. It's ideas fear of with Professor the importance of being funny. Sex marriage and so does for us but for us the far jokes and for us. The great existential question their unavoidable that maybe years maybe unanswerable but they're more approachable because of jokes. Political. Well you are having a feeding frenzy there seems to be more satire there lowballed than they can handle every day in fact some observers feel that we're in the golden age of comedy Hello I'm Guy rather blood welcome to ideas fear of blood for board today's voices business ethics professor Al genies spent 27 years as the resident the loss of her a National Public Radio affiliate w b easy in Chicago he's authored several books including by job myself why it's hard to be good and seeking the truth of things now gee need turns his attention to humor with his book The Importance Of Being funny why we need more jokes in our lives he contemplates a number of issues as he delves into philosophical sociological political and ethical questions but above all Cheney notes comedy is a way of dealing with reality and making sense of the world and Professor Jeannie joins me for this program thank you for taking this time my pleasure indeed you have Chapter 3 as a center point for your work and that is you say this is the heart of what you're trying to tell your readers yeah it's interesting that you say that to the middle of your book well I think I think I gave it away earlier in the book but you know I'm a trained academic and I'm afraid I was leading up to you know intro so and so forth I don't think I broke through I think I did my thesis statement earlier but Chapter 3 coping with reality is really the heart of the book because what I'm trying to say here is that humor is much more than foolish fun I think you as a sword and as she will be used to defend ourselves against reality it's a weapon if you will yes and I think that we're talking about I think jokes are weapons made of words and it allows us to examine the taboos the frightening things in life the perplexities of lives the absurdities of lives the income from. And stability of life and give us some in a way that doesn't you know totally frighten us to death doesn't totally make us suffer from angst I don't think jokes can always detox resolve or answer. Both Procul questions and larger perennial questions you know philosophical questions the meaning of life etc etc Or a tragedy like protests happening around us right now in regard to the floods in the hurricanes but it helps us detox and perhaps put in perspective of what's going on around us. As an ethics professor of several decades now you understand the need for jokes you recognize the value of such things what you are having a hard time with right now and I want to get back to this later is how the youth don't recognize the value of understanding not only ethics in their practice in everyday life but how joking helps them through it well I think my students understand joking which is kind of interesting but they understand I wonder if they connect it to a larger to a larger issue that is we're living in the midst of a kind of comic golden times right now the special times both the media has changed that the availability of any comic at any time by just opening your laptop and a veil ability on h.b.o. Or Netflix and dozens of cable kind of companies of comics Plus a huge explosion of comedy clubs around the nation not nightclubs the way you are I certainly remember who are very kind by saying a couple of decades it's been more than a couple of decades all right I remember going to nightclubs when I remember seeing Milton Berle that and I could remember seeing Jimmy Durante night because they were in taxi those they were really in show business by that I mean they came there and they told jokes that were funny you know read by a priest and a minister walk into a bar etc etc but they were necessarily cutting edge stuff now what's everything's changed because a guy called Jerry Seinfeld became the really premier performer of the observational comedy it was still a punchline there is still a set up there was still applause there was still a punchline but they weren't telling jokes that were disconnected from life anymore and so I think my students and younger people the millennial is and your generation x. Generation whatever that generation is before the Millennial. Are attuned to jokes but I wonder if face I understand the gravitas of jokes it seems strange to say that. I think I learned the most about this both from my uncles I talk about beginning the book and from studying at the concentration camps as a student of I'm sorry ethics and evil that I found in the concentration camps that the inmates themselves told jokes of themselves in order to survive and this in the midst of this anguish and Mrs unbearable misery they they weren't sitting around you know the campfires at night eating their Grewal to endure the one about but they try to find humor in anything and Victor Frankl of the great psychiatrist and philosopher said there without humor he would have died immediately and I'm sure it's because it was unbearable but somehow humor gave him enough impetus to remember what happiness was what love was what what the possibilities of life were and so he went on and he's talking about humor such as this he himself demonstrated this he said he saw a camp guard beating up his friend and his friends playing on the ground of the guard for look steps over and says try and his friend looks up and says Cullen Nice to meet you sir yes now that desperate attempt you know to find some moment or the joke that I've heard in a number of places about it you can tell the jokes on stage are not funny these jokes are jokes of the participants about what they're engaged and Sarah meets Martha somewhere in the campgrounds on the streets and services to Martha Martha you look good if you're lost and even losing weight that is a horrible horrible picture but to them it was spitting in the face of evil you know and so salvific And I think that will be a beautiful life that was about 20 years ago and it was Italian based upon Auschwitz and other camps yeah humor that when India Yeah and that somehow that that became a popular film that we can. Very sensitive some interesting me enough speaking of comics and trying to make a larger statement Jerry Lewis just passed and Jerry Lewis was for all of his it was show business this is the all time show business and never quite gave that up you know and then played a shtick and played a kind of comedy that is not funny anymore there's no such thing as a Martin Lewis anymore there are very few comic couples even the Jerry Lewis said there aren't the reason real reason for comedy is to make you happier when you're sad you know go see Virginia Woolf's you go to a comedy club you go you go to you go to a comic himself about 20 years ago it was probably a greater director and he was a comic in the long run did a film on Auschwitz in which he played a clown and trying to keep the children happy even knowing the pain that was never released because he said it was too more of it and it really wasn't and even his humor was too morbid and it ended and so the subtext would have been lost but I think I want to say bravo to that and bravo to that film by the Italian director and writer and actor and that's only when the Academy Awards or. And I think that's that's de rigueur I mean that's an extreme is but I think humor gets us through the day I mean and I think the most common jokes besides sex as you know when you do research and you read score sex but because sex is a mystery sex is this you know sex is something we're or preoccupied with but in some sense you know as you get older I compose less and less real time in your life it's and yet we have we had we pursue it but marriage children you know work profession so and so forth it's an attempt to find a way around this unavoidable reality in our lives it's an attempt to have another side of it to understand it differently in case you're just tuning in the importance of being funny when we need more jokes in our lives author Al Genie you have a website blog or anything else you want to pass along I actually do. I mean Various to say this for a man who still has a black and white television at home and doesn't own a cellphone and is speaking to a rotary just doesn't put my Luddite credentials in perspective it's algae need dot net I think it's a capital a a l g I it and I dot net it doesn't read my publisher put it up for this book and for my other works Yes Ok I'll have that posted at Public Radio Exchange p r x dot org anyone can go there to that site listen to the program under ideas fear and the importance of being funny you can click on that link to al genies website again you Portman's of being funny and returning to what you were just talking about timing timing is everything yeah and one of the examples you bring up is a joke that Amy Schumer told sometime ago yeah that hurt her and her popularity it did it and I'm hesitant to repeat it you know you. And you not but she was making fun of a certain class of males who may have been considered excessively aggressive in their dating patterns how fat that was it was very clever analysis and she said she doesn't want to date those kind of males anymore she's more interested in kind of cooperative sexuality or that that circum have a gay to that joke and the social media went crazy on that now any Schumer's one brilliant writer I don't like her any more onstage because she's gone from this sweet cause catfish comedian who has a rapier wit into it's kept it's that scares I started to college I didn't get the holiday scares me it's choice relations there's just too much sexuality in it and it gets a little boring I wish she would have a little larger palette because you can do it and her movie is true for that that you did a couple years ago but you got in trouble because she was not of that ethnicity telling that joke and I think that 2 things are a foot here you know. Our foot here timing and the teller here but let's talk about the teller we all know the 1st rule of real estate is location location location and I think the 1st rule of comedy is audience audience audience. Who's telling the joke. What's a joke about and to whom are you telling the joke Ok And it was inappropriate but I would also argue you know that I do I do a lot of presentations and because I'm Italian and Jewish I could tell a joke with a little bit of a Jewish accent I could tell a joke with a little bit of an Italian accent to add flavor to the joke but you know you can't do that anymore this is a politically correct climate and so I think timing and audience are really critical when you tell a joke but to go a larger question of timing a lot of people have said the company is really tragedy plus time now Brooks has even said it and I think Mel Brooks is a genius in regard to humor. I don't think so sometimes yes but and you know Mel Brooks made up has made a career as made himself a fortune out of making fun of Nazis out of you know showing time for Hitler and Germany and the producers I mean it's a brilliant piece of work and now World War 2 seems like this antique. You know ancient history kind of thing and when my son my students when I when I teach Abraham Lincoln in my leadership class my students always ask did I serve in the Civil War I mean they have no sense of what these wars are. I have the right to do that myself yeah and I always tell them I met Lincoln we weren't really that close but nevertheless so were 2 scenes ancients an arcane there are very few Vietnam jokes out there. I had some experience with that time period even though with Ken Burns thing coming on shortly I don't think there'd be a lot of Vietnam jokes to be made and I just came back from Africa by. Away and and Rwanda has to chase after the gorillas and found them luckily wonderful experience but I'm not about to tell them the river on the genocide jokes I don't think Time alone is enough we give we give comics great license and in some sense comics are Town Criers they're the Claxton's that warn us of things you know the satirist especially you know they're these what they are these important ingredients because Nietzsche is right for him quoting Nietzsche who by the way it was not a funny fellow at all he said we have art in order to not tire the truth well in search of humor for art we have humor in order to not die of the truth I think that's really true but you can you know but that's about how much license you've given here is a perfect example there are a whole series of comics right now who are going to be multimillionaires because of Donald Trump no matter what your politics and I'm not the I mean the president right now I'm trying to be as p.c. As possible Ok he is a lightning rod for controversy he's a lightning rod for satirist I think we all agree on that his mannerisms his brand his demeanor in the words he uses he's just he you know as as Richard Lewis says it's not fun being a comic anymore because I don't have to write anything I just have to read the headlines Ok pick up the paper pick up the paper and there you are and yet Kathy Griffin went too far I was just thinking of her as you were saying this that was over the top over the top yes but when is absolutely you know I mean so over the top in one sense right but acceptably over the top making fun of not you know there's a bridge too far you know I think the best way to understand you know divest and well how do you know that bridges and I always tell people do you tell your mother sex jokes no they say of course that as well I think there is. I mean we know you know we know that there are levels and and certain kinds of jokes you simply don't tell people it's that it's not acceptable or inappropriate you would never tell it and the Irish joke unless your friend is very very Irish knows your jokes or has given you permission directly or indirectly to do so Ok so I think that what the importance of humor can be ruined by people who miss use it he has and he were talking about the the time of the joke or the style and how Martin and Lewis would not be effective today because it's so different the stylus a different one of the teams that surprised me was Laurel and Hardy they were so great and their timing was unbelievably accurate but when I tried to show my young niece and nephew that they were about 8 or 9 years old they were horribly bored. Yeah you know comedy doesn't always translate over time I think that that's true you know Lincoln when Lincoln was assassinated inside of his jacket there were 4 or 5. Set satirical pieces he wrote it read them regularly he sat at night all night long and the Telegraph shed it wasn't this beautiful room depicted in the film Lincoln it was a shed and he he read key read jokes he read satirise in order he said to find some joy in this pain and this madness and he was very very he was very clear about you know that but those jobs don't translate anymore I mean any cancer doesn't translate anymore you know George Burns God love my song at 99 you know and he walked on stage all of 2 foot 3 of him and he was a guard. Those of you have put money down the right I would make it out here you lose those of you who put money down that will make it to the set you're still alive but his jokes were you know you know tempted not that you know no longer transit I think jokes and Ted Cohen has taught me this universe Chicago jokes require an exchange of customs and culture you have to be in the same culture in order to understand now what has translated Laurel and Hardy is the slapstick Yes the moving the piano as it slides out of the 3rd into the 3rd floor and bangs him in the head that translates but you know all Ali. I did mean to get you in trouble doesn't translate you know the facial expressions I think Laurel and Hardy would probably could probably resuscitated and they're talking films and they did make me not talking films and they did make some of the rather silent films like the silent films do come so a Bob Hope Bob Hope lived too long Bob of Thomas 100 he wasn't that funny anymore he just wasn't that good anymore he didn't speak to an audience anymore he had people still writing his stuff Gerri. To Jerry Seinfeld he says my generation doesn't understand it by the way Seinfeld is 62 now he's not a kid those who are watching him. Runs that's not the Jerry essential of today and Seinfeld didn't tell jokes he made comments and here's a perfect common sense I'm coming that's gotta set up an applause and a punchline but it's not a joke he looks at the audience and says you know I never knew I had to turn my voice had a tone. That isn't so I got there. Right and talking about marriage that that resonates that they want to work for Bob Hope here to do here is our own Milton Berle not some broad famous joke and. Doesn't look at the wife while they're watching television says Do you think the you know the fun in our marriage is kind of gone away and dissipated she looks like this is not now let's talk about it during the commercial break. Our our Henny Youngman 6 wonderful joke which I'd love to do simply because it's you know it's fun to do as a verbal things it's a secret a happy marriage secret to everybody it's simple simple I know it it's dinner and dancing twice a week I go on to say he goes on Thursday you know. It's wonderful stuff. It works talking with Professor Jenny the importance of being funny why we need more jokes in our lives this is ideas fear I'm Guy right bun We'll be right back. Thank you to everyone who contributed to k c b x during our fall pledge drive while the on air portion of our membership drive has ended and we're still looking for new and we new ng members to take make a pledge of support to Katie b.x. If you haven't done so yet please take a moment to visit key c.b.x. Dot org and donate now thank you. You are back with ideas fear Professor Algy name the importance of being funny why we need more jokes in our lives Professor Jeannie we left off talking about how a comedic style can become stale over time but I'm thinking about one comedian in the Decatur whose whose humor is held up it seems he tapped into his own neurosis and then made it universal what he Allen Oh of course in fact is difficult to deal with some of the systems are way too dark and way too difficult but he's still talking a little fun at that he needs it humor and I think Ellen may be a discussion of the time I think Ellen is trying to hold on. His own death and his own fear by projecting it outwards and you know that's what art is about again and you know there's not a lot of anxiety a lot of anxiety there's 2 people over the last great comic couple were taken Michael Key and Jordan Peele and hopefully they haven't broken up forever because I think they were just brilliant together they had a quote in Time magazine years ago people forget what the real purpose of humor is to help people cope with the fears and horrors of the world cope not resolve not to answer. But to give us a moment to green our dignity and do this you know there's that famous joke by Freud which is a terrible joke but captures it perfectly right gentleman is as about to be executed he's walked out of the courtyard and as he's going up the gallows steps to be hung he looks around and says well this is a hell of a way to start your Monday. You know and what Freud is saying is he's just diffracted our anxiety about that like what are you going to do about it anyway right yeah right and so on and so forth so if nothing else I'll tell you a true story I've been playing Hamlet a group of guys for about 45 years I started when I was 4 I was precocious player and you just teasing Yeah I got it like and every morning and every morning started it 6 Yeah I think thank you very much you don't have to send a check for this interview that would be a sufficient thank you. So every morning we begin but we would get it with an organ recycle my are all my back. Home I need to write it so there's always begin but years ago but 20 years ago are still relatively young men you know early fifty's kind of thing mid fifty's among the guys in the other court who was part of our group and have been playing has a heart attack by them is down and they yell Help help help and we run over there and the guys on the ground and blue I mean the post-mortem was the valve broke away and he was dead before hit the ground but he's laying there kind of twitching and thrashing and so on and so forth so I knew c.p.r. And you know I hold his head to this dude had to then I tried a little c.p.r. And and then they called the fire department fire department got theirs to keep going and cleared the fired from friends and stopped you know he's clearly dead and the fear in the room could have been cut with a knife and the anxiety in the preparation and the smells in the room you know the body just rebelling against the scene as well but thing and I just looked up and I had no idea I wish I had planned this instead. Can I clean out his locker because I don't think he's going to need his gloves. Kind of them changed we all took a laugh and I didn't mean to do it but the air back in the room put the air back in the room you know and one sense it was a great death he was dead before hit the ground but it reminded us of our really develop it just brings to mortality that right into your face right right right right I wish that wasn't a true story but it is you know it helps reach an understanding of. What you teach ethics and it's really important in jokes Col ethics is tied into it so I'm curious in our last few minutes if you would outline how you treat that with your students. Well you know I wrote a chapter on that it's called philology gag Yes and I lifted that from a live to that from the 2 authors of that wonderful book played on a platypus walk into a bar and there were 2 undergraduates at Harvard in philosophy and they always said there's a connection between jokes and philosophy because they both deal with you know they both kind of Sir illustrate philosophy deals with all these questions but sort of joke structure with death and sex and marriage and and so does philosophy but philosophy is hard and so their argument is that those jokes and philosophy can probe these great excess central questions so Ok they me they're unavoidable that may be irresolvable they may be unanswerable but they're more approachable because of jokes so I don't play the comic in the classroom. I'm not trying to be the stand up in fact as I've gotten older I have to force myself to Joe glass so as to maintain some modicum of dignity in the classroom but like a stand up comic I've got to know when to deliver it and when to now I will on occasion when you know it's it's 1030 on Friday morning. And half an hour to go and I'm trying to explain the 13th century Vols shift and how that affected ethical thinking you know some dreadfully dull topic and again the room is overheated and and they're thinking only about the football game or the basketball game coming up and I've lost them and I stop and I say Hey Jerry the one about and tell a joke I mean just blatantly tell a joke and get him but I get him back but I try to tell a joke as in regard to an issue that we're dealing with you know. An issue that that's germane to the topic but I'm trying to tell the joke not to be a jokester but the 2 entered if I enter trained. If I entertain them perhaps I can train them perhaps I can get in and I mean train in that sense I mean educate them and I'm convinced as coaches convince that people of great humor are also people people of great wit also people of great intelligence do you know a joke that says something about you so I get them awake with a joke then maybe I can get in again but as I have to be ethics for example I was years and years ago when I was only teaching when I was teaching every class in the book because you know before I became a specialist in business ethics I was teaching metaphysics and I was teaching Heidegger to Zite and find time to time in between try to explain time and they were just lost and I said Well how about this lady because of the doctors not feeling so good the doctors agreed exams Well I hate to tell you you've got this terminal disease there's absolutely nothing I could do for you and even worse you've got you've got no more than 6 months to live the most is my God don't care is no cure at all is there anything I do well there is one thing you do doctors and she says much that she can marry a tax accountant just well that cure the disease Oh no that will make the next 6 months seem like an eternity. And that ruins everything. But they got it time is relative right time time moves episodically time is determined by yourself and others time is amorphous and so you could do the same things you know if you want to joke of business ethics I could do it but but you know I think that what jumps to is give us give us a can opener and for a larger top. School Professor Jean this has been free fun thank you so much good but supposed to be I think I've what I try to do in this is I try to write a serious book about humor but being seriously funny about the way well you've done it thank you very. Much Yes it's been Professor genie says for these sorts of. Org for ideas fear. We're streaming. Find us on social media. On Facebook Twitter and Instagram. Page a division. But the sales and service shop for all your communication needs. More at 966-4151 support for. Services including the latest traffic and road conditions public transportation and calculators know before you go. Up next on. Fresh air today at 3 o'clock the time is now 2 o'clock thanks for listening. It's The Splendid Table from a.p.m. American Public Media and then Rossetto Kasper now that salts have pedigrees with prices to match as in pink the Malayan Japanese deep water where are the USA salts one is hiding in the mountains of. A journalist the story goes back to the creation of the Appalachian Mountains which were originally part of a chain in what is now Morocco and that was on the continent and there were huge holes and.