So…I have been cutting loose on Facebook lately. Previously, I was really careful not to post shit that could invite a flame war, or alienate someone who might otherwise be my next client.

But the national political situation has me very riled up and needing an outlet for those emotions.

First I posted some serious stuff about the need to impeach Trump. Then I got tired of my own pontificating and decided to lighten up a bit. I made this meme, which I then posted to my page:

Some people’s comments expressed being offended, even hateful of me. An interesting subset of those comments consisted of corrections to my spelling: “It’s spelled with an ‘I,’ you f#in’ idiot!”

Now that worries me. I mean, unless they’re bots (which is possible), I would have thought they’d recognize humor.

I responded to one such comment with the following reply, which helped me achieve a twisted state of equanimity:

[name omitted]—spelled “Impeach,” well, we all know what that means. But spelled “Empeach,” it’s called “humor.” Like “embodied” or “embedded” or “embroiled,” it means getting sucked into something—like this little chat we’re now having :). So I thought to myself, I thought “Self—maybe it would be funny to spell it ’empeach’ instead of ‘impeach’ and to show Trump stuck inside a peach.” Get it, [name omitted]? Humor. Levity. Funny shit. Like me teasing you for not having a clue that something might be said tongue-in-cheek (which means “intended as a joke”). The appropriate response is to laugh, not to act as if you know how to spell better than I do.

Don’t take everything so literally, man. We’re still WAY more similar than different. Though I do worry that those similarities are looking pretty frayed lately.

So, make a few jokes now and then. See if you can get “the opposition” to laugh. There’s a great episode in the TV series “Louie” (Louis C.K.) where he’s doing a comedy tour for troops overseas. They accidentally stray into a very tense encounter with the enemy, when suddenly this live duck (that Louie’s young daughter gave him to somehow keep him safe) jumps out from inside his jacket and Louie is running around frantically trying to catch the duck, and everybody cracks up, and a mortal catastrophe is averted.

Something tells me we really need that duck right about now, pal.