The Jews and the Native Americans have much in common. Well, okay, only one thing, really: genocide. Six million Jews and six million others died in the Holocaust in Germany; similarly, a massive proportion of Americans in the North, Central and South Americas were massacred when the Europeans arrived. It’s hard to think about genocide in a rational manner, and so my people, the Jews, dealt with the Holocaust with humor.

My favorite example: the Gestapo spent much time bullying Freud, and would not give him an exit visa permitting him to leave Austria without writing a letter stating that the Gestapo had not bullied him – that they had, in fact, given him total freedom in his work. He added a single sentence – “I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone!”

I like to think that America has done the same thing – dealing with horrible actions via humor – even when it is us perpetrating the horrible deed. Case in point: the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. We dropped more ordinance on Cambodia than on Japan during World War Two. The operation titles were: Operation Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, etc. If that’s not humor, I don’t know what is.