We’ve all heard the phrase, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Readers Digest has been telling us this for years, but until recently there was no real evidence to back up the claim. This book discusses the exciting findings scientists have obtained over the past 25 years for how your sense of humor supports good physical and mental health. A separate chapter discusses humor and the brain. The first studies of humor and health demonstrated humor’s ability to strengthen the immune system, reduce pain and reduce levels of stress hormones circulating in the body. These general health-promoting benefits led researchers to study the impact of humor and laughter on specific diseases. This exciting new work has now shown health benefits of humor in connection with coronary heart disease, asthma, COPD, arthritis, certain allergies and diabetes. The two cerebral hemispheres of the brain are shown to play different roles in our understanding and enjoyment of humor. Also, specific dopamine-based pleasure centers in the brain have now been identified which account for the good feeling that results from humor and a good belly laugh. The key to understanding humor’s contribution to health and wellness is its ability to both build more positive emotion into your life and reduce feelings of anger, anxiety and depression. Humor helps provide the emotional resilience needed to meet the challenges presented by steadily increasing stress in our personal and work lives. It is a powerful tool for coping with any form of life stress, and a means of sustaining a positive, optimistic attitude toward life. And it’s never too late to improve your sense of humor. The companion to this book, Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed-Out World (also published by AuthorHouse), presents a hands-on program for learning to use humor to cope.
Here is the first book that is geared toward practical applications of humor with children. Health care professionals, counselors, social workers, students, and parents will find this to be a fascinating, instructive volume that illustrates how to effectively incorporate humor into children’s lives to produce enormously positive results. With a strong “how to” focus, this enlightening volume addresses the use of humor in the classroom--to promote learning and to foster higher levels of creative thinking. Experts who are on the cutting edge of humor and its benefits for children examine the importance of humor in fostering social and emotional development and in adapting to stressful situations. And for the scholarly reader, Humor and Children’s Development documents the major research trends focusing on humor and its development. This excellent resource--certain to spark further debate and research--offers an unrivaled opportunity to further understand children’s behavior and development. Humor and Children’s Development was featured in the February 1990 issue of Working Mother magazine in article titled “Let Laughter Ring!” by Eva Conrad. The chapter entitled “Humor in Children’s Literature” by Janice Alberghene was one of the finalists for the Children’s Literature Association’s Literary Criticism Award for the best critical article of 1988 on the subject of children’s literature.
Here is the first book that is geared toward practical applications of humor with children. Health care professionals, counselors, social workers, students, and parents will find this to be a fascinating, instructive volume that illustrates how to effectively incorporate humor into children’s lives to produce enormously positive results. With a strong “how to” focus, this enlightening volume addresses the use of humor in the classroom--to promote learning and to foster higher levels of creative thinking. Experts who are on the cutting edge of humor and its benefits for children examine the importance of humor in fostering social and emotional development and in adapting to stressful situations. And for the scholarly reader, Humor and Children’s Development documents the major research trends focusing on humor and its development. This excellent resource--certain to spark further debate and research--offers an unrivaled opportunity to further understand children’s behavior and development. Humor and Children’s Development was featured in the February 1990 issue of Working Mother magazine in article titled “Let Laughter Ring!” by Eva Conrad. The chapter entitled “Humor in Children’s Literature” by Janice Alberghene was one of the finalists for the Children’s Literature Association’s Literary Criticism Award for the best critical article of 1988 on the subject of children’s literature.
What do Jon Stewart, Freddy Krueger, Patch Adams, and George W. Bush have in common? As Paul Lewis shows in Cracking Up, they are all among the ranks of joke tellers who aim to do much more than simply amuse. Exploring topics that range from the sadistic mockery of Abu Ghraib prison guards to New Age platitudes about the healing power of laughter, from jokes used to ridicule the possibility of global climate change to the heartwarming performances of hospital clowns, Lewis demonstrates that over the past thirty years American humor has become increasingly purposeful and embattled. Navigating this contentious world of controversial, manipulative, and disturbing laughter, Cracking Up argues that the good news about American humor in our time—that it is delightful, relaxing, and distracting—is also the bad news. In a culture that both enjoys and quarrels about jokes, humor expresses our most nurturing and hurtful impulses, informs and misinforms us, and exposes as well as covers up the shortcomings of our leaders. Wondering what’s so funny about a culture determined to laugh at problems it prefers not to face, Lewis reveals connections between such seemingly unrelated jokers as Norman Cousins, Hannibal Lecter, Rush Limbaugh, Garry Trudeau, Jay Leno, Ronald Reagan, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Bill Clinton. The result is a surprising, alarming, and at times hilarious argument that will appeal to anyone interested in the ways humor is changing our cultural and political landscapes.
Lewis draws on both humor theories and research, arguing for the development of interdisciplinary methodologies in the study of literary humor. He demonstrates that the sociologist of humor and the comic playwright approach the same subject—humor in and between groups—with different tools, that writers of Bildungsromane and developmental psychologists share a common interest in the role of humor in maturation, and that the monsters that haunt the psyches of professional comedians can be useful in understanding the odd minglings of humor and fear in Gothic fiction. His treatment of writers who differ widely in their use of humor suggests that the complexity and diversity of humor make it a richly variable determinant of character, genre, and writer.
The Oise-Aisne American Cemetery is the last resting place of 6,012 American soldiers who died fighting in a small portion of Northern France during the First World War. The impressive cemetery is divided into four plots marked A to D. However, few visitors are aware that across the road, behind the immaculate façade of the superintendent’s office, unmarked and completely surrounded by impassable shrubbery, is Plot E, a semi-secret fifth plot that contains the bodies of ninety-four American soldiers. These were men who were executed for crimes committed in the European Theater of Operations during and just after the Second World War. Originally, the men whose death sentences were carried out were buried near the sites of their executions in locations as far afield as England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Algeria. A number of the men were executed in the grounds of Shepton Mallet prison in Somerset – the majority of whom were hanged in the execution block, with two being shot by a firing squad in the prison yard. The executioner at most of the hangings was Thomas William Pierrepoint, assisted mainly by his more-famous nephew Albert Pierrepoint. Then, in 1949, under a veil of secrecy, the ‘plot of shame’, as it has become known, was established in France. The site does not exist on maps of the cemetery and it is not mentioned on the American Battle Monuments Commission’s website. Visits to Plot E are not encouraged. Indeed, public access is difficult because the area is concealed, surrounded by bushes, and is closed to visitors. No US flag is permitted to fly over the plot and the graves themselves have no names, just small, simple stones the size of index cards that are differentiated only by reference numbers. Even underground the dishonored are set apart, with each body being positioned with its back to the main cemetery. In The Plot of Shame, the historian Paul Johnson uncovers the history of Plot E and the terrible stories of wartime crime linked to it.
Heaven is multiethnic, "a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language." But in this diverse community shouldn't have to wait until eternity to begin! It can be a reality now. Here, the authors give biblical warrant for such a community and show how multiethnic churches provide a unique apologetic for the gospel.
The story of the largest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi, in what would one day become Kansas City, and the role it played in American history. The Battle of Westport, Missouri—today part of Kansas City—was fought by troops from as far away as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as Texas, Arkansas, Colorado and Iowa. It was the climax of a desperate Confederate raid led by General Sterling Price proceeding from Arkansas across the State of Missouri to the Kansas border. The Union victory at Westport marked the end of major military operations in Missouri and secured Kansas and the trails, rails, and communication lines to the western states. Participants included future governors of both Kansas and Missouri, notorious postwar outlaws, and many notable characters who would shape the growth and image of the western states. This book tells the story of the place, the engagement, the people, and the importance of the Missouri/Kansas border war’s greatest battle. In addition, the aftermath and legacy of the Battle of Westport is presented in the broader context of westward expansion, giving readers a greater appreciation of how far-reaching the effects were of those few days in October, 1864.
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