People who never laugh aren’t serious people.
A new Facebook friend from Belgium (not otherwise known to me) has as her motto on the site a quotation from the Belle Epoque writer Alphonse Allais (also previously unknown to me):
Les gens qui ne rient jamais ne sont pas des gens serieux.
[People who never laugh aren’t serious people.]
Could there be a better comment on our current humorless, un-serious politics?
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
A few Found Art artists have observed something a bit similar - If you're not serious, you can't afford to be funny! Serious people are the most funny. Clowns are the most serious people on the planet!
Jon Stewart and Stephen Tyrone Colbert (three names, like an assassin) are, thus, the demi-gods of political punditry.
Brilliant quote - but am I perhaps missing the laugh about why it's filed under "Affordable Care Act"?
Nope. Just a typo. Fixed now.