By Tim Sanders

Humor is a funny thing. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: "Gee, thanks for that bit of insight, Mr. Webster!" Well, that is not what I meant. What I meant was, there are times when a humor columnist will find, as his deadline draws near, that nothing even remotely funny has happened to him all week. He has relatives in the hospital, his dog believes she’s being stalked by his wife’s black purse, and he’s noticed a large lump on his elbow which, despite his wife’s reassurances, might well spawn larger lumps which will migrate, and within a month he’ll look like the Elephant Man. No humor in any of that stuff.

So that is when the trained humorist goes to his backup humor source, the news. In an October 19, 2006 AP article, I read that officials at Attleboro’s Willett Elementary School, south of Boston, "have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase games during recess for fear they’ll get hurt and hold the school liable."

That’s funny, but when the article adds that "several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous," it’s even funnier. Apparently being tagged "it," or being hit by a lightweight rubber ball, can do permanent damage to a child’s fragile psyche. (You know: "In third grade I was ‘it’ for three consecutive minutes, your honor. God help me, it was more than I could bear, and that’s why I drove over Grandma with my SUV")

Now kids at Willett Elementary School can just gather around a nice, safe, non-threatening vending machine during recess and fill their chubby little selves with self-esteem and Twinkies.

Gosh, it’s good to hear that school officials somewhere are finally taking action against the rising tide of school violence.

But that’s in Massachusetts, you say. They pronounce "Gloucester" GLAW-STER, and "Worcester" WOO-STER. And speaking of woosters, do they call their precious little "Rochester" ROOSTER? Nooo! They call it NEW BEDFORD! They’re all nuts!

Well calm down, it’s not just Massachusetts. This article goes on to say that "elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports." And it’s not just the good old U.S. of A. that’s going goofy. Here’s another jewel, this one, dated October 14, is from a British paper, the U.K. Telegraph:

YEAR-LONG PROBE TO FIND COUNCIL HECKLER

By David Sapsted

It has taken more than 12 months and cost about 10,000 pounds [approximately 18,700 U.S. dollars] but a council is finally discovering the identity of a man who kept saying "baa" during a planning meeting.

After a wide-ranging investigation, Havering council, based in Romford, Essex, has prepared a 300-page report, according to the Romford Recorder newspaper ...
...The incident has its roots in a planning meeting in September last year when an application was being heard to put a mobile home on a farm housing rare breeds of horses and sheep.

The solemnity of the debate was, apparently, interrupted by a male councillor making unhelpful "baa-ing" noises.

This so enraged Councillor Jeff Tucker, who represents the area where the farm is, that he reported the incident to the Standards Board for England which, in turn, referred it back to Havering council for investigation.

Now, after a probe estimated to have cost 10,000 pounds in staff time, the list of suspects has been narrowed down to four, who will be quizzed by the standards hearings sub-committee in November.

One of the suspects, Denis O’Flynn, a former Labour councillor and deputy mayor, said: ‘This has been an extremely expensive example of the worst kind of council bureaucracy. The fact that this investigation has cost so much time and money is the height of stupidity.’

A council spokesman denied that the report extended to 300 pages, though he admitted that it was ‘substantial’.

So there’s proof that humor does not observe international boundaries. The British can do some things which make us Americans look almost ... well, sane. They have localities with silly names like Romford, Essex and Havering, and they have long, passionate discussions about mobile homes set in sheep pastures. And even better, they have year-long, $18,000 investigations into just which local politician was making disrespectful sheep noises during those discussions. I can just imagine next month’s subcommittee meeting in Haverford:

BARRISTER: And Mr. Mudgridge, did you at any time during the aforementioned September, 2005 meeting of the Havering Council, based in Romford, Essex, emit, either intentionally or unintentionally, sheep-like noises which disrupted the proceedings?

MUDGRIDGE: No sir!

BARRISTER: Mr. Dimmesdale, I put the same question to you.

DIMMESDALE: Absolutely not!

BARRISTER: Mr. Hynton-Smythe?

HYNTON-SMYTHE: I’ve been a public servant for two decades, and unless one were to count that unfortunate episode following our 2002 cheese curd and beans with sausage dinner, I have never, even once, emitted unseemly noises during a council meeting!

BARRISTER: Well then, that leaves you doesn’t it, Mr. O’Flynn?

O’FLYNN: BAA-barrister or no BAA-barrister, you have no BAA-business accusing me of such BAA-beastly BAA-behavior!

BARRISTER: Then it appears we have our man. Have we any suggestions from the councilors here convened as to punitive measures?

COUNCILLORS THERE CONVENED: (Silence.)

BARRISTER: Oh, come now! Mr. Mudgridge?

MUDGRIDGE: Mooo!

BARRISTER: Mr. Dimmesdale?

DIMMESDALE: Quack, quack!

BARRISTER: Mr. Mr. Hynton-Smythe?

HYNTON-SMYTHE: Cluck, cluck, cluck!

And then the whole silly bunch could declare a subcommittee recess and run outside for a rousing game of no-contact tag. Or as they call it on the continent, "duck, duck, goose."