Laugh

Glenn's cartoon needs a caption. That's where you come in. Send us your wryest one-liner for a chance to win a gift certificate to a Howard County restaurant and a signed copy of the cartoon. E-mail your submission to lastlaugh@patuxent.com by June 17. Remember to include your name, address and phone number. On June 20, finalists will be posted on our website, www.HowardMagazine.com, where readers can cast a vote for their favorite until July 1. A winner will be named in the August issue.

This is cracking me up. A father has started a Tumblr collection of photos of his toddler crying with captions that explain why he's crying. My two favorites so far: "He asked me to put butter on his rice. I put butter on his rice," and "I wouldn't let him drown in this pond. " Check out more here: http://reasonsmysoniscrying.tumblr.com/

Glenn's cartoon needs a caption. That's where you come in. Send us your wryest one-liner for a chance to win a copy of the cartoon and see your caption printed in a future edition. E-mail your submission to lastlaugh@patuxent.com by Dec. 22. Remember to include your name, address and phone number. On Dec. 26, finalists will be posted on our website, www.HowardMagazine.com, where readers can cast a vote for their favorite until Dec. 30. A winner will be named in the February issue.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: RISIBLE Perhaps, like Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins , you love to laugh. If so, you would be marked by risibility , an inclination to laughter, or possessed of risibility, a sense of the amusing. The adjective risible  (pronounced RIZ-uh-buhl) can mean inclined to laugh or causing laughter.

By the time Florida goalie Tomas Vokoun boarded the team plane with his head wrapped and left ear stitched up, the shock and confusion of defenseman Keith Ballard's ill-advised actions had worn off. The Panthers could laugh again. "It looked a lot more scary than it really was," Vokoun said Wednesday morning, wearing a black ski cap and a white bandage over his ear that was cut in the middle and required more than 10 stitches. "I do have a nasty cut on my ear, but it's not usual for goalies, but players get cut all the time.

We have countless awesome sports photos in the archives here at The Baltimore Sun , and I have decided to share one with you each week in a regular feature called "Throwback Thursday. " Since I fantasized about Peter Angelos -- let me finish this sentence -- using his Exxon money to sign slugger Prince Fielder in this Thursday morning post , I decided to do an extensive search of Mr. Mesothelioma in our photo archives. God, did I find an amazing photo of Angelos and Governor William Donald Schaefer back in 1993.

I received mail from the people against slots at the Arundel Mills this weekend showing a picture of a mother with the headline, "I may never leave my kids at the mall again. " I laughed out loud at the absurdity of the idea and then came to realize that there might really be people in our county who view a mall as a babysitter — which isn't laughable at all. A mall is not intended to be a babysitter, and the fact that this idea is being pushed by the against-slots people is mind-blowing.

The portraits cast stern gazes over the hallway. These titans of philosophy - Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche - look every bit as complex and daunting as the works they produced. Jim Thomas shuffles into view. Clad in red Converse All-Stars, worn jeans and an unbuttoned, untucked flannel shirt, he appears no match for the guys on the wall. The words spill out of his mouth in an Arkansas drawl that just might be his secret weapon. "Some people may think I'm stupid," says the University of Maryland, Baltimore County philosophy professor.

Baltimore celebrities will take their best shot at comedy, all in the name of giving back. The first Chimes Charity Chuckle seeks to raise funds for the Chimes, a Baltimore-based nonprofit group that provides services for the disabled, on Oct. 29 at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. "We're looking to provide the town with a good night out," said Marty Lampner, president and CEO of Chimes. "I think we'll have a very good time and it will be a lot of fun. " When Lampner took over as president and CEO last year, organizers decided to put a fresh face on the annual Chimes fundraising event that for the past 20 years consisted mostly of concerts or dinner-dance receptions.

"I'M FUNNY," Neal Graham says. He shouldn't have to lobby on his own behalf, but there you have it. He's talking on the telephone from College Park, where he currently resides, while readying for a professional return this weekend to the Baltimore area of his youth. He grew up in Cockeysville, graduated from Dulaney High, went to the former Towson State University where he managed to graduate, with slight pauses here and there for a few "behavioral dismissals," after just seven years. Did somebody say "behavioral dismissals"?

Vice President Joe Biden, the Republicans' favorite punching bag, gave his critics nothing to laugh about as President Barack Obama's ultimate fireman in rescuing the country from the fiscal cliff it teetered on as 2012 ended. Mr. Biden's 11th-hour entry by partnering once again with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell struck a modest but crisis-postponing deal, raising taxes on the richest Americans but entailing little or no serious debt reduction. It enabled the president to say the middle class had been protected, but it also let the Republicans claim former President George W. Bush finally had finally gotten his way in making his tax cuts permanent.

My sweet baby boy Aaron turned 1 on Saturday. I still can't quite wrap my head around how fast this year has gone by. I knew it would be fleeting. This isn't my first rodeo, after all, and I'm stunned every day by just how grown-up my 4 1/2-year-old is. And with Aaron being born before my husband returned from his deployment to Afghanistan, I knew that first few weeks would fly. But knowing that, and knowing that we're a two-and-through family and that I wouldn't be doing this again, made me think that if I held on a little tighter to every moment, maybe time would slow down.

The name Mark Harvey may be familiar to some. He's the guy who ran onto the field at an Orioles game as well as a Ravens game. This man is a self-absorbed idiot who brazenly sloughed of all rules of decorum while watching a sporting event ("'Batman' streaker at Orioles and Ravens games to be jailed," Dec. 19). Fans in Baltimore do not need his kind. His disruption of games while wearing a Batman-like cape and messages penned onto his body is infuriating. He says he does his shtick to get messages across to the fans.

Prince George's Little Theatre opens its 53rd season with "The Hallelujah Girls," giving area audiences their first opportunity to enjoy this show that celebrates all holidays — from Christmas to the Chinese New Year and ending happily on the Fourth of July. Each scene of this comedy at Bowie Playhouse is set on the eve of a holiday that is observed by frequently outrageous characters — including a quartet of well-ripened Georgia peaches who support one another as they strive for success in love and business.

Bay Theatre Company's production of Norm Foster's "The Foursome" might well be described as a profound comedy. In this season's second show, running through Jan. 13, Bay president Barbara Dwyer Brown promises to deliver "the gift of laughter in an exploration of the wonders of the male psyche on the golf course. " Foster's works are produced more frequently than those of any other playwright in Canadian theater history, with more than 150 productions annually. The author of more than 40 plays, he finds riotous comedy in believable people dealing with life situations.

Everyone knows that these speed cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with generating revenue ("Fast money," Nov. 18). Where are all of the millions of dollars that these cameras are generating actually going? Some of these so-called "safety" cameras are located on major roads. Roads that are not in the immediate vicinity of a school or school crossing where school children or any pedestrian, for that matter, ever walks or crosses! I have to laugh every time I drive past a speed camera.

This is an edited excerpt of a San Francisco Chronicle editorial, which was published Jan. 13. LAUGHTER IS well-known to be the best medicine; now scientists tell us it is instinctual behavior, common to all cultures and a universal way to communicate. Our ancient ancestors were giggling and guffawing even before they learned to talk. San Francisco Chronicle science writer Carl T. Hall reported this week on University of Maryland psychologist Robert Provine's 10-year study of the physiology of laughter, its mechanics and evolutionary implications.

WASHINGTON -- Ethics and politics is a growth industry. Were there a stock called "Ethics and Politics Inc." and had you been able to purchase a few hundred shares in the mid-1990s, then you would have already doubled or quadrupled your initial investment. Hold that stock till 2010 or 2020, and you'll probably be rich. People laugh when I tell them I teach a course in ethics and politics. I once taught a course in ethics and business and people laughed when I told them that, too. Yet they clearly think that the combination of ethics and politics is more bizarre than the combination of ethics and business.

As the host of Shaquille O'Neal's All-Star Comedy Jam 2012, Gary Owen always has to be on his game. There's no letup - not when you're the guy charged with keeping the crowd roaring through six different acts putting out more than two hours of material. "It's harder, the further you get into a show, to keep the laughs going," said the Cincinnati-born Owen, who will be the on-stage leader when the jam takes over Baltimore's Lyric Opera House on Saturday. "People may think you're just as funny, but they get tired.

I would like to first thank the editorial board of The Sun for electing to publish, week after week, the words of Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. He is indeed a funny man, and no matter how desperate things become, Mr. Ehrlich has a way of breaking though to bring a smile to one's face. It was no different in his most recent column ("Nervous Obama takes refuge in his base," Aug. 26), where he once again spread the lies being promoted by the Republican Party. Thanks for the Sunday morning humor!