A reader sent along the following comment:”Recap of the last handful of posts: You’re anti-union and pro-war. You can’t imagine anywhere in the world being more free than the U.S.A. Ra-ra rah republican. We get it. Please stick to the comedy.” Well, at least he said please.

You make too many assumptions. Among them:

#1: That we are anti-union. No. We are anti-comics‘s union. Unions are good for coal miners, bad for comedians. Unions are good for tool and die makers, bad for comedians. We have many reasons for why we think so and we’ve gone into them in great detail in the past. (Besides, if we are the Nazis you think we are, would we run a link to the NYT article and provide a soapbox for one of the primary organizers of the union talked about in said article?)

#2: That we are pro-war. We never said anything of the kind. What we did say was that it was presumptuous (and not good for standup comics in general) for anyone to assume that we are all, as a group, anti-war… or pro-war… or anti-this or pro-that.

War, like a handful of other issues, is an emotional and divisive one. Why would you want the country to believe that all (or mostly all) comedians are anti-war? And, conversely, would you want the country to believe that all (or mostly all) comedians are pro-war? Either way, you run the risk of having 50 per cent of the country avoiding comedy clubs.

How about we leave it up to the individual comic to address such issues onstage (and suffer any consequences), if he or she so chooses?

If you think we’re being paranoid, ponder this: There was a lengthy period of time in the late 80s and early 90s when much of America was convinced that, if they were to attend a show at a comedy club, they’d see a presentation that was mysoginistic, sexist or racist or all three and then some. Their preconceptions were not based on fact, but on a notion that was regularly fostered by the media. It mattered not that their fears weren’t based on personal experience. We maintain that any preconceptions that might keep comedy club patrons away from clubs would be a bad thing. We still are dogged by one particularly vicious canard that says that comics just aren’t funny! (We can’t tell you how often we hear that said, depicted, written, in the major media, on television, in magazines.) Nationally-syndicated radio talk host Laura Ingraham is one of the prime offenders on this one– even after we sent her an email admonsihing her for the diss.

And, before you burn up the keyboard admonishing us for equating homophobia, mysogyny or racism with an anti-war stance, let us assure that we are making the point that any generalizations are bad or potentially bad.

So, you see, we actually were “sticking to the comedy.”

And, at the risk of sounding prick-like, this is our blog and we can write about (or not write about) anything we damn well please. In fact, we could even run the recipe for Christmas cookies that we’re using this week.

1 Cup Butter

1/2 Cup Sugar

2 Egg Yolks

1 t Vanilla

2 Cups Flour

1/2 t Baking Powder

Combine the sugar and the butter. Combine the yolks with the vanilla, then combine it with the sugar/butter mixture. Combine the flour with the baking powder, then mix it into the butter/sugar,etc. mixture. Don’t refrigerate. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Use a cookie press. Sprinkle with a bit of colored sugar before baking.

Merry Christmas!